anger.

"I aims ter keep right on twell I gits this damned young night-rider
hisself. Ther minute he dies ther rest of hit'll fall in like a roof
without no ridge-pole."

He paused, then went on musingly: "I wouldn't be amazed none if
Fulkerson's gal knows whar he's at right frequent. I've done _dee_vised
a means ter hev her lead somebody ter him some time when he's by
hisself. Ratler Webb seed him walkin' alone in ther woods only
yistiddy."

"Why didn't Ratler git him then?"

Kinnard ground his teeth. "Why don't none of 'em ever git him? He
claims he hed a bad ca'tridge in his rifle-gun an' hit snapped on him.
Folks calls him Bear Cat an' hit 'pears like he's got nine lives in
common with other cats. We've got ter keep right on till we puts an end
ter all of em."

Black Tom was so inconsiderate as to burst in a raucous laugh of
ridicule. "Hit usen't ter be so damn' hard ter kill one man," was his
unfeeling comment.

About that time Kinnard's man-pack developed a strong disinclination to
take bold chances of falling in with the black army of torches. They
moved about their tasks with such constraint that their quarry had a
correspondingly greater freedom and latitude. And moonshiners no longer
boasted defiance, but dug in and became infinitely secretive. In spite
of all these precautions, however, day after day saw new trophies
hanging along way-side branches until there were few left to hunt out.

One afternoon, walking alone through the woods, Bear Cat Stacy stooped
at the edge of a "spring branch" to quench his thirst, and as he knelt
he saw floating past him yellow and broken grains of corn. Cautiously
and invisibly he followed the stream upward, worming himself along
until he lay looking in upon the tiny plant of a typical illicit still.
Its fire was burning under the mash kettle and back far enough to
escape the revealing light was a bark roofed, browse-thatched retreat
in which sat an old man, reflectively smoking.

As Bear Cat looked on, a startled surprise came into his expression and
his face worked spasmodically as if in pain. He wished he might not
have seen the floating evidence which had brought him here and
confronted him with the hardest tug-of-war between sincerity and
blood-loyalty that he had yet encountered.

The man huddled there in his rabbit-warren retreat was old Turner
Stacy, brother of Bear Cat's father and the uncle for whom he had
himself been named. Bear Cat had not even suspect