"Ah, you've betrayed yourselves," cried Sydney. "I know it was you two boys who hid Pink Pressley when the revenue men were chasing him the last time."
"The last time?" John asked the question.
"Oh, Pink used to be a chronic moonshiner. He seems to be a reformed pirate now," said Patton. "He must be in love."
"Whisky is the curse of this country," said Mrs. Carroll, vehemently, while Bob gazed into the fire and Sydney played with the sugar-tongs. "You can't deny lying, Bob, when the moonshiners are lying to the revenue men every day, and their friends are lying in their behalf; and you can't say they don't steal, when they are defrauding the government with every quart of blockade they sell. The mountaineers may be loyal to their friends, but it is to conceal crime."
"Illicit stilling seems to be regarded like smuggling," said John. "The government is fair game."
"Whisky stunts the growth of children, and blunts the morals of youth, and makes murderers of men," went on the old lady, disregarding John's interruption, and sitting with expressive straightness. A silence fell upon the group that John and Katrina felt to be painful without understanding why. Patton and Sydney were burning with sympathy for Bob. It was Patton who broke the quiet.
"And they drink it from a dipper!"
The ensuing laughter snapped the strain of embarrassment.
"We have another class of people that we haven't described to Katrina," said Sidney. "The resident foreigners."
"Like Baron von Rittenheim," said Bob, absently, staring at the fire.