wouldn't be ther first
pryin' stranger what got lost in these hyar hills, and warn't never
heard of more."

"Admitted. But what's to be gained in taking the chance? I'm ready--yes,
anxious--to give you my word of honor that I'll forget what I've
stumbled on here this afternoon. Come, be reasonable, Judd."

"Wall, ef you'll swa'r thet ..." began the mountaineer dubiously.

"I do," broke in Donald with undisguised eagerness. "I solemnly swear
never to tell a soul about the existence of this still, so help me God.
There, I hope that satisfies you. You need not be afraid of my not
keeping my oath, but just the same, I think you're a fool to do this.
You're almost sure to be caught at it, sooner or later, and a federal
prison isn't a particularly pleasant place."

"I don't reckerlect hevin' asked any advice from _yo'_," was Judd's
surly reply.

"Well, I don't expect that you'll follow it," answered the other, as he
scrambled to his feet. "And since we don't seem to hit it off very well
together, I guess I'll be starting along."

"No yo' won't ... leastwise not yet!" Judd's words came with crisp
finality, and were reinforced by a quick movement of his rifle to the
hip. "I haint through with ye yet, stranger. Last year I warned ye fair
thet this hyar mountain war an on-healthy place fer ye. 'Pears like yo'
didn't believe hit, but I means thet ye should this time. Erfore yo'
goes I'll hear ernother sworn promise from ye, an' I reckon yo' kin
guess what hit air."

"I can. And you're not going to get it. No, by God, not if you put a
coward's bullet into me for refusing," burst out Donald, with his
pent-up anger breaking its bounds at the other's dictatorial demands. "I
agreed that what you did with your time wasn't my business, but what I
do with mine, is. And I don't take orders from you in the matter,
understand?"

The mountaineer's lips drew back, his body quivered, and the finger on
the rifle's trigger trembled.

Above him, Donald stood equally tense and pale. He felt that he should
be praying as he had never prayed before, but wrath possessed his spirit
wholly, and his mind was completely concentrated on that lean
forefinger, whose slightest tension meant death. Moments like these come
but once in the lifetime of the average man, if, indeed, they ever come
at all; but, when they do, when he suddenly finds himself face to face
with some cataclysmic upheaval in human or external nature that
threatens to rend the th