“Evening, strangers.”
“Evening,” responded Jim. “Donald Campbell about?”
“Naw. He ain’t lived here in quite a spell. Gone up the valley ten miles or more. Lookin’ for him?”
“Well, I calculated on seeing him,” was Jim’s response. “Can we stay here to-night?”
The man hesitated an instant, but then spoke swiftly as if to cover up his momentary vacillation.
“Yep. Come right in. Guess we kin get you supper and a shake-down. That’s all you want, ain’t it?”
“That’s all,” responded Jim as they passed the threshold. Inside they found themselves in a rough looking room lighted by a hanging lamp which reeked of kerosene. At a table under it some men had been sitting, but they vanished with what appeared suspicious haste as the two strangers came in. The host left them alone soon after, promising to give them some bacon and eggs and coffee. The noise that they had heard as they drew close to the ranch had died out, and now all was as silent as a graveyard. Ralph lowered his voice as he addressed Mountain Jim.
“What sort of a place is this, anyhow?”
In the same low tones Jim made his reply:
“Dunno, but it looks to me like what they call up in this section a ‘whisky ranch.’ It’s the resort of bad characters and is stuck back here in the woods so as to be beyond the ten-mile limit. You see the Canadian government, knowing what harm that stuff does, won’t let liquor be sold within ten miles of a public roadway.”