leetle dram of licker. My bottle's nigh empty an' I've got a
far way ter travel yit."

Turner Stacy had now arrived at a point from which he could see around
the hulking shoulder of sandstone and the picture which met his eye was
not reassuring.

The miller stood barring the door to his shack and the visitor,
inflamed of eye, a little unsteady on his feet, confronted him with a
swagger of lawless daredeviltry.

"I hain't got no licker. I don't never use hit," replied Jason curtly.
"So ef thet's all thet brought ye hyar, ye've already got yore answer
an' ye mout es well be farin' on."

Webb's leer darkened to malignity and his voice came in a snarl.

"Ye hain't hardly got no tolerance fer drinkin', hes ye, Bud? Albeit ye
hain't none too sanctified ter grind up all ther sprouted corn thet
other fellers fotches in ter ye."

The old fellow was alone and unarmed save for his hickory staff, but he
was vested with that authority which stiffens a man, standing on his
own threshold and facing an insolent trespasser. His manner was
choleric and crisp in its note of command.

"I don't aim ter waste no time cavilin' with a drunken carouser. I bids
ye ter leave my place. Begone!"

But the traveler, inflamed with the venom of the drunken bully, lurched
forward, whipping a revolver from its sagging pocket. With an oath he
rammed the muzzle close against the pit of the other's stomach.

Bud's level eyes did not falter. He gripped his useless hickory as if
it had been a lictor's staff of unchallengeable office. Perhaps that
steady moment saved his life, for before his assailant's flood of
obscene vilification had reached its period, Ratler Webb leaped
back--interrupted. He changed front, wheeling to protect his back
against the logs of the rude wall and thrusting his pistol before him,
while his jaw sagged abruptly in dismay.

Bear Cat stood facing him, ten yards distant, and his right hand was
thrust into his opened shirt, under the armpit, where the mountain man
carries his holster. That the position of the hand was a bluff,
covering an unarmed helplessness, Ratler Webb did not know.

"Air ye follerin' revenuin' these days, Ratler?" inquired Stacy in a
voice of such velvet softness that the other responded only with an
incoherent snarl. "Because ef ye air, numerous folks hyarabouts will be
right glad ter find out who it is that's informin' on 'em."

"Damn ye! Keep thet hand whar hit's at!" ordered the aggressor
violent