s,
but he interpreted this as the secret transportation of brush whisky
from the still to its market. He had thought to fix the transgression on
an old enemy of his own, long suspected of moonshining; but he was
acquainted with none of the youngsters on the wagon, at whom he had
peered cautiously from behind the rocks. His actuating motive in giving
information to the emissaries of the government had been the rancor of
an old feud, and his detection meant certain death. He had not expected
the revenue-raiders to be outnumbered by the supposed moonshiners, and
he would not fight in the open. He had no sentiment of fealty to the
law, and the officers glanced at each other in uncertainty.

"This evidently is not the wagon in question," said Browdie,
disappointed.

"I'll follow them a bit," volunteered Ronan, the younger and the more
active of the two officers. "Seems to me they'll bear watching."

Indeed, as the melancholy cortege fared down and down the steep road,
dwindling in the sheeny distance, the covert and half-suppressed
laughter of the sepulchral escort was of so keen a relish that it was
well that the scraping of the locked wheel aided the distance to mask
the incongruous sound.

"What ailed you-uns ter name _me_ as the corpus, 'Gene Barker?" demanded
Walter Wyatt, when he had regained the capacity of coherent speech.

"Oh, I hed ter do suddint murder on somebody," declared the driver, all
bluff and reassured and red-faced again, "an' I couldn't think quick of
nobody else. Besides, I belt a grudge ag'in' you fer not stuffin' mo'
straw 'twixt them jimmyjohns in the coffin-box."

"That's a fac'. Ye air too triflin' ter be let ter live, Watt," cried
one of their comrades. "I hearn them jugs clash tergether in the
coffin-box when 'Gene checked the team up suddint, I tell you. An' them
men sure 'peared ter me powerful suspectin'."

"_I_ hearn the clash of them jimmyjohns," chimed in the driver. "I
really thunk my hour war come. Some informer must hev set them men ter
spyin' round fer moonshine."

"Oh, surely nobody wouldn't dare," urged one of the group, uneasily; for
the identity of an informer was masked in secrecy, and his fate, when
discovered, was often gruesome.

"They couldn't hev noticed the clash of them jimmyjohns, nohow,"
declared the negligent Watt, nonchalantly. "But namin' _me_ fur the dead
one! Supposin' they air revenuers fur true, an' hed somebody along, hid
out in the bresh, ez war acquai