eyes, and haggard faces, looked as if they
had just escaped from a madhouse.

Edward Young now positively refused to drink any more of the spirits,
and Adams, although he would not go quite to that length, restricted
himself to one glass in the day.

This at first enraged both Quintal and McCoy. The former cursed his
comrades in unmeasured terms, and drank more deeply just to spite them.
The latter refused to work at the canoe, and both men became so
uproarious, that Young and Adams were obliged to turn them out of the
house where they were wont occasionally to meet for a social evening.

Thus things went on for many a day from bad to worse. Bad as things had
been in former years, it seemed as if the profoundest depth of sin and
misery had not yet been fathomed by these unhappy mutineers.

In all these doings, it would have gone hard with the poor women and
children if Adams and Young had not increased in their kindness and
consideration for them, as the other two men became more savage and
tyrannical.

At last matters came to such a crisis that it became once more a matter
of discussion with Young and Adams whether they should not destroy the
machinery by which the spirits were made, and it is probable that they
might have done this, if events had not occurred which rendered the act
unnecessary.

One day William McCoy was proceeding with a very uncertain step along
the winding footpath that led to his house up in the mountain. The
man's face worked convulsively, and it seemed as if terrible thoughts
filled his brain. Muttering to himself as he staggered along, he
suddenly met his own son, who had grown apace by that time, being nearly
seven years of age. Both father and son stopped abruptly, and looked
intently at each other.

"What brings you here?" demanded the father, with a look of as much
dignity as it was in his power to assume.

The poor boy hesitated, and looked frightened. His natural spirit of
fun and frolic seemed of late to have forsaken him.

"What are 'ee afraid of?" roared McCoy, who had not quite recovered from
his last fit of _delirium tremens_. "Why don't 'ee speak?"

"Mother's not well," said Daniel, softly; "she bid me come and tell
you."

"What's that to me?" cried McCoy, savagely. "Come here, Dan." He
lowered his tone, and held out his hand, but the poor boy was afraid to
approach.

Uttering a low growl, the father made a rush at him, stumbled over a
tree-root, and fell h