A few yards farther on, Tony halted. Still lying flat on his stomach, he carefully pulled aside the bushes so that his companion might see.
CHAPTER
22
HELP FROM TONY
Through the leaves, Penny saw a fairly large clearing. Three men, Ezekiel Hawkins and his two sons, were squatted about a big hardwood fire over which was a large copper cooker.
A pipe extended above the cover, connected with a series of coils immersed in a barrel of cold water.
“A still!” the girl whispered. “They’re making alcohol here and selling it in the city! That’s what those containers held that were trucked away!”
“Make-a the stuff every day,” volunteered Tony. “I watch—sometimes I steal-a the lunch. They very mad but no catch.”
“They’re probably afraid you’ll tell revenue officers,” Penny whispered.
From one of the barrels, Coon had taken a dipper filled with the pale fluid. As he drank deeply from it, his father said sharply:
“Thet’s enough, Coon! We gotta git this stuff made an moved out o’ here tonight, and ye won’t be fitten.”
“What’s yer rush, Pappy? We got termorrer, hain’t we?” Coon sat down, and bracing his back against a tree trunk, yawned drowsily.