ay, 'Frale seen a houn' dog on his scent, an' he's gone home to git
shet of him.'"

"Frale seen a houn' dog on--on a--a cent, an'--an'--an' he's gone home
to--to get shet of him. What's 'get shet of him,' Frale?"

"Nevah mind, honey; yer paw'll know. Run in an' tell him 'fore you
forgit hit. Good-by."

She danced gayly off toward the house, but turned to call back at him,
as he stood watching her. "Are you going to hit the 'houn'' dog with the
pretty ball, Frale?"

"I reckon." He laughed and strode off toward the one small station in
the opposite direction from the way the man had taken.

Frale knew well where he had gone. On the outskirts of the village was a
small grove of sycamore and gum trees, by a little stream, where it was
the custom for the mountain people to camp with their canvas-covered
wagons. There they would build their fires on a charred place between
stones, and heat their coffee. There they would feed their oxen or mule
team, tied to the rear wheels of their wagons, with corn thrown on the
ground before them. At nightfall they would crawl under the canvas cover
and sleep on the corn fodder within.

Often beneath the fodder might be found a few jugs of raw corn whiskey
hidden away, while the articles they had brought down for sale or barter
at the village stores were placed on top in plain view. Sometimes they
brought vegetables, or baskets of splints and willow withes, made by
their women, or they might have a few yards of homespun towelling.

The man Frale had seen was the older brother of his friend Ferdinand
Teasley, and well Frale knew that he was camped with his ox team down by
the spring, where it had been his habit to wait for the cover of
darkness, when he could steal forth and leave his jugs where the money
might be found for them, placed on some rock or stump or fallen trunk
half concealed by laurel shrubs. How often had the products of Frale's
still been conveyed down the mountain by that same ox team, in that same
unwieldy vehicle!

Giles Teasley's cabin and patch of soil, planted always to corn, was a
long distance from his father's mill, and also from his brother's still,
hence he could with the more safety dispose of their illicit drink.

In the slow but deadly sure manner of his people, he had but just
aroused himself to the fact that his brother's murderer was still alive
and the deed unavenged; and Frale knew he had come now, not to dispose
of the whiskey, since the still ha