in meal, but Frank noticed that everything looked neat and
clean about the house, and both lads relished the coarse food. Indeed,
Barney afterward declared that the corn bread was better than the finest
cake he had ever tasted.

Frank was particularly happy at the table, and the merry stories he told
kept Kate laughing, and, once or twice, brought a grim smile to the face
of the woman.

After supper they went out in front of the cabin, where they could look
up at the wild mass of mountains, the peaks of which were illumined by
the rays of the setting sun.

Mrs. Kenyon filled and lighted a cob pipe. She sat and puffed away,
staring straight ahead in a blank manner.

Just how it happened Frank himself could not have told, but Barney fell
to talking to the woman in his whimsical way, while Frank and Kate
wandered away a short distance, and sat on some stones which had been
arranged as a bench in a little nook near Lost Creek. From this position
they could hear Barney's rich brogue and jolly laugh as he recounted
some amusing yarn, and, when the wind was right, a smell of the black
pipe would be wafted to them.

"Do you know," said Frank, "this spot is so wild and picturesque that it
fascinates me. I should like to stop here two or three days and rest."

"Better not," said the girl, shortly.

"Why?" asked the boy, in surprise.

"Wal, it mought not be healthy."

"What do you mean?"

"You might be tooken fer revenue."

"For revenue? I do not understand."

"I wonder ef you air so ignerent, or be you jest makin' it?"

"Honestly and truly, I do not understand you."

"Wal, I kinder 'low you-uns is all right, but thar's others might not
think so. S'pose you know what moonshine is?"

"Yes; it is illicitly distilled whiskey."

She nodded.

"That's right. Wal, ther revenues say thar's moonshine made round these
parts. They come round ev'ry little while to spy an' cotch ther folks
that makes it."

"By revenues you mean the officers of the government?"

"Wal, they may be officers, but they're a difrrunt kind than Jock
Hawkins."

"Who is Jock Hawkins?"

"He's ther sheriff down to ther cove. Jock Hawkins knows better'n to
come snoopin' 'round, an' he's down on revenues ther same as ther rest
o' us is."

"Then you do not like the revenue officers?"

"Like 'em!" cried the girl, starting up, her eyes seeming to blaze in
the dusky twilight. "I hate 'em wuss'n pizen! An' I've got good cause
fer hatin' 'em."