CHAPTER VIII
Spurrier was not frightened, but he was deeply mystified, and when he reached the cabin which he was preparing for occupancy he sat down on the old millstone that served as a doorstep and sought enlightenment from reflection and the companionship of an ancient pipe.
In an hour or two “Uncle Jimmy” Litchfield, under whose smoky roof he was being temporarily sheltered, would arrive with a jolt wagon and yoke of oxen, teaming over the household goods that Spurrier meant to install. Already the new tenant had swept and whitewashed his cabin interior and had let the clear winds rake away the mildew of its long vacancy. Now he sat smoking with a perplexity-drawn brow, while a tuneful sky seemed to laugh mockingly at the absurd idea of riflemen in ambush.
Every neighbor had manifested a spirit of cordiality toward him. To many of them he was indebted for small and voluntary kindnesses, and he had maintained a diplomatic neutrality in all local affairs that bore a controversial aspect.
Certainly, he could not flatter himself that as yet any premonition of danger had percolated to those distant centers of industry against which he was devising a campaign of surprise. One explanation only presented itself with any color of plausibility.
That trickle of water might come to the gorge from a spot back in the laurel where, under the shelter of a felled hemlock top, some one tended a small “blockade” distillery; some one who resented an invasion of his privacy.
Yet even that inference was not satisfactory. Only yesterday a man had offered him moonshine whisky, declaring quite unsuspiciously: “Ef ye’re vouched fer by Uncle Jimmy, I ain’t a’skeered of ye none. I made thet licker myself—drink hearty.”
Of the real truth no ghostly glimmer of suspicion came in even the most shadowy fashion to his mind.
His efforts to trace to definite result some filament of fact that might prove the court-martial to have reached a conclusion at variance with the truth, had all ended in failure. That the matter was hopeless was an admission which he could not afford to make and which he doggedly denied, but with waning confidence.