“Good mo-ornin’!” Lockwood responded with equal languor. “You stopping here?”
“For a while, mebbe.” He examined the horse and rider. “Reckon you’re one of the turpentine riders?”
“Yes. And I expect you’re Blue Bob.”
“Mebbe some calls me that. My name’s Bob Carr. This hyar’s my house boat. You reckon Craig’s got anythin’ to say ’bout hit?”
“I reckon not,” said Lockwood amiably, “so long as you don’t interfere with his camp.”
“Ef nobody don’t bother us none we don’t bother them none,” growled the river dweller, returning Lockwood’s grin with animosity; and the woods rider turned his horse into the pines again. He had nothing whatever to say to the river pirate, but he promised himself to keep a watchful eye on that boat.
He sighted it again that afternoon, apparently deserted, but next morning he did not go to the woods. The turpentine still was set going, and he remained at the camp to assist in “running a charge.” The copper retort bricked in on the top of the furnace was a large one, and a “charge” meant a good many barrels. One by one the shouting negroes swayed the heavy barrels of “dip” up to the platform around the retort, emptying the gum into the mouth, together with a due allowance of water, anxiously watched by the expert still man. The cap was then screwed down, and a carefully regulated fire of pine logs set going in the furnace below.
The spiral worm went off from the shoulder of the retort, passed through a tank of cold water, and ended in a tap below. In due course steam began to issue from this orifice, then there was a slow, increasing drop of liquid. The still man watched it carefully, collected the drops and tasted them. It was turpentine. The spirit was coming off, and a bucket was set to catch it.
Being more volatile than water, the spirit came off first. The slow drops quickened to a stream. The bucket was filled and emptied many times, filling one barrel after another, while the furnace fire was kept at a steady glow. Too much heat would boil off the water as well as the turpentine. It went on for hours, until at last the experienced eye and nose of the “stiller” detected that what was coming through the worm was not turpentine but water. He closed the tap. The turpentine was done. It was the rosin next.
Three negroes dragged open a large vent in the lower side of the retort, and a vast gush of blackish, reeking, boiling rosin tumbled out into a huge wooden trough. It was the residue of the distilling, less valuable than the spirit, but still valuable. It passed through three strainers—the first of coarse wire mesh to catch the chips and large rubbish, one of fine mesh, and lastly a layer of raw cotton, known technically as a “tar baby.” As the trough filled, the still intensely hot rosin was drawn off at the farther end and poured bubbling and reeking into rough casks. Here it slowly hardened into rocklike solidity, to be headed up finally for shipment down the river.