m the log in the fireplace, and which alarmed the
jays and inquisitive mockingbirds about the little clearing.

He prayed while his voice grew huskier and huskier, and his head bowed
lower and lower as he wrestled with this peril which he had not
foreseen. All he asked was that when the moonshine began to operate, it
make him laugh instead of mad, but terrible doubts smote him. A glance
at his rifle on the wall made him fairly grovel on the floor, and he
knew that in his hands the andirons, the axe, the very hot-bread rolling
pin would be deadly weapons.

He hoped that he would not be able to shoot straight, but this hope was
instantly blasted, for a flock of wild turkeys came down into the
cornfield about ninety yards from his cabin, and although he seldom shot
anything in his own clearing, he now tried a shot at the turkey gobbler
and shot it dead where it strutted. If he should be stricken with anger
instead of with joy, no worse man could possibly live! There was no
telling what he would do if the liquor would work "wrong" on him. He
could kill men at two hundred yards!

He determined that he would see no human beings that day. Few people
ever visited him in his cabin, but he took no chances. He crept up the
mountain and skulking through the woods found an immense patch of
laurels. He crawled into it, and sat down there for hours and hours, so
that no one should have an opportunity to speak to him and stir the
latent devil of violence.

He returned to his cabin long after dark, and raking some hot coals out
of the ashes, whittled splinters and started a blaze. He was assailed
by hunger, and he baked corn pones and dry-salted pork, then added a
great flapjack of delicious sage sausage to the meal. He brought out
cans of fruit, whose juice assuaged his increasing thirst. Having eaten
heartily he resumed his vigil before the fireplace, and then he noticed
that some one had tied something on the stock of his rifle.

It was a letter which a passer-by had brought up from the Ford Post
Office, and when he opened it and looked at the writing, remorse
assailed him:

Dear Parsun:

Ever senct you preched here I ben sufrin count of my boy JocK. You
know Him for he set right thar, frade of no man, not the Tobblys,
nor the Crents. When tha drawed DOWN to shoot, he stud right thar an
shot back shoot fer shoot, an now he has goned awa down the Rivehs
an I am worited abot his soul because he is a gud boy an neveh