“And mine’s Bob Daves,” sang out the second of the pair as he clinched my hand.
“Hev ye enny o’ the dew ready fer my jugs, an’ fer my throat, which is ez dry ez a bald mounting?” asked Harran.
“I reckon we kin manage to set yer off,” answered Daves.
One of the casks in the shed was tipped, a plug drawn from its top, and a stream like the purest spring water gushed into a pail set below it. This was whiskey. The jugs were filled. Each of us then imbibed from a rusty tin dipper. In keeping with my assumed character, I was obliged to partake with them. We took it straight, my companion emptying a half-pint of the liquid without a gurgle of disapproval or a wink of his eyes.
While the men worked in the light of the furnace fire, and talked in loud tones above the noise of the running water flowing down troughs into the hogshead, through which wound the worm from the copper still, I listened and “j’ined” in at intervals, and this I learned:
One of the men was a widower, the other a bachelor. It was two miles down that side of the mountain to a road. The corn used in distilling they bought at from twenty-five to fifty cents per bushel, and “toted” it or brought it on mule-back up the trail to the still. They had no occasion to take the whisky below for sale. It was all sold on the spot at from seventy-five cents to one dollar per gallon, according to the price of corn. Those who came after the liquor, came, as we had, with jugs, and thereby supplied the tipplers in the valley, usually charging a quarter of a dollar extra for the trip up and back—nothing for the danger incurred by dealing in it.
The older man, Giller, I noticed, had been eyeing me rather suspiciously for some time. His observation made me rather uneasy. At last, while I was seated on a large log before the fire, Giller approached me, and, as though by accident, brushed off my hat. Not thinking what he was up to, as I naturally would do I turned my face toward him.
“By—!” exclaimed he. “Hit’s all a blasted lie. You’re no moonshiner. You’re a revenoo; but yer tricked right hyar.”
I saw a big, murderous-looking pistol in his hand and heard it click. I suppose I threw up my hands. “Hold on, hold on!” I exclaimed. “Don’t shoot! for heaven’s sake, man, don’t shoot! it’s a mistake.”
“Wal, I don’t know ’bout thet. We’ll hev Harran explain this thing while I keep a bead on yer head.”