as there to stop
me until the captain of the guard arrived.

For one silly moment I was tempted to advance and see what this martial
spouse would do if I tried to pass her on the trail. But a hunter's
instinct made me glance forward to the upper corner of the field. There
was thick cover beyond the fence, with a clear range of a hundred and
fifty yards between it and me--too far for Tom to recognize me, I
thought, but deadly range for his Winchester, I knew. One forward step
of mine would put me in the status of an armed intruder. So I concluded
that common sense would better become me at this juncture than a bit of
fooling that surely would be misinterpreted, and that might end
ingloriously.

"Ah, well!" I remarked, "when your husband gets back, tell him, please,
that I was sorry to miss him; though I did not call on any special
business--just wanted to say 'Howdy?' you know. Good day!"

I turned and went down the valley.

All the way home I speculated on this queer adventure. What was going on
"up yan"?

A month before, when I had started for this wildest nook of the Smokies,
a friend had intimated that I was venturing into a dubious
district--Moonshine Land. It is but frank to confess that this prospect
was not unpleasant. My only fear had been that I might not find any
moonshiners, or that, having found them, I might not succeed in winning
their confidence to the extent of learning their own side of an
interesting story. As to how I could do this without getting tarred with
the same stick, I was by no means clear; but I hoped that good luck
might find a way. And now it seemed as if luck had indeed favored me
with an excuse for broaching the topic to some friendly mountaineer, so
I could at least see how he would take it.

And it chanced (or was it chance?) that I had no more than finished
supper, that evening, when a man called at my lonely cabin. He was the
one that I knew best among my scattered neighbors. I gave him a rather
humorous account of my reception by Madame Kirby, and asked him what he
thought she was yelling about.

There was no answering smile on my visitor's face. He pondered in
silence, weighing many contingencies, it seemed, and ventured no more
than a helpless "Waal, now I wonder!"

It did not suit me to let the matter go at that; so, on a sudden
impulse, I fired the question point-blank at him: "Do you suppose that
Tom is running a still up there at the head of that little cove?"

The