Old Buck Wolfe was in no good humor that afternoon. For one thing, he had been absentmindedly allowed a "run" to boil over, and the whisky tasted like pickled beets. The decrepit pair found him on his knees before the crude little stone-walled furnace; he was lustily blowing the fire to make it catch to fresh wood. Another run was on.
Grandpap Singleton walked up silently, to all appearances unaware that he was on forbidden land. He bent stiffly over and scooped a live coal into the bowl of his pipe. A few puffs lighted the tobacco for him, and he passed the coal to the pipe of the old woman. Then he very calmly seated himself on a downward-turned mash tub.
"Buck," he said seriously to the moonshiner, who had been eyeing him hard, "whar are ye a-goin' to when ye die?"
"I am a-goin' to a place," very readily, "which is knowed as a three-by-seven, a grave, a hole in the ground, a last restin'-place, and a last ditch, whar I'll rot down to plain dirt."
He sat back on his heels, and stared at Grandpap Singleton in open defiance.
"Oh, no, Buck," and the aged mountaineer shook his snowy-white head emphatically. "You hain't a-goin' to stop thar. No, sirree. Ef you hain't quick to blaze a new trail, Buck, you're a-goin' as straight to Hell as a honey-bee to its comb."
"How do you know?" snapped Old Buck Wolfe.
The Prophet took his worn Bible from under his arm, put it flat on his outstretched left hand, and touched it with a shaking forefinger as each word was formed on his lips.
"I knows it by the Word o' God, sir." After a silent moment, he continued, "Buck Wolfe, in some ways you're a most pow'ful smart man."