“No, I never wanted to take a chance of inquiring,” rejoined Peter, puffing at a dirty corn cob. “I did hear, though, that they had resumed operations some place around here.”
“They did, eh? I suppose they figgered that lightning don’t never strike twice in the same place.”
“Just the same, they are taking a long chance. With revenues against you it’s all one sided—like the handle of a jug.”
“That’s so. But there’s good money in it, and Black Bart would risk a lot for that.”
The conversation was carried on in low tones. Rob, intent though he was, could not catch any more of it. But he pondered over what he had heard. If what Jim Dale and Peter had said was correct, a gang of moonshiners still made the mountains thereabouts their habitat.
“It’s a strange situation we’ve stumbled into,” thought the boy.
Then he fell to observing Stonington Hunt and his son, Freeman. The man and the boy were talking earnestly at some distance from Peter and Jim Dale. From their gestures and expressions Rob made out that the conversation was an important one. From the frequent glances which they cast in his direction he also divined that he himself, was, in all probability, the subject of it.
All at once Stonington Hunt arose and came toward him. Freeman followed him. They came straight up to Rob and stood over him.
“Well, Rob Blake,” sneered young Hunt, “I guess things are different to what they were the time you drove me out of Hampton and forced my father to profess all sorts of reformation.”
“I don’t know,” rejoined Rob coolly and contemptuously, “you seem to me to be very much the same sort of a chap you were then.”