man's face hardened, and there came a glint into his eyes such as I
had noticed in Mistress Kirby's.

"Jedgmatically, I don't know."

"Excuse me! I don't want to know, either. But let me explain just what I
am driving at. People up North, and in the lowlands of the South as
well, have a notion that there is little or nothing going on in these
mountains except feuds and moonshining. They think that a stranger
traveling here alone is in danger of being potted by a bullet from
almost any laurel thicket that he passes, on mere suspicion that he may
be a revenue officer or a spy. Of course, that is nonsense;[4] but there
is one thing that I'm as ignorant about as any novel-reader of them all.
You know my habits; I like to explore--I never take a guide--and when I
come to a place that's particularly wild and primitive, that's just the
place I want to peer into. Now the dubious point is this: Suppose that,
one of these days when I'm out hunting, or looking for rare plants, I
should stumble upon a moonshine still in full operation--what would
happen? What would they do?"

"Waal, sir, I'll tell you whut they'd do. They'd fust-place ask you some
questions about yourself, and whut you-uns was doin' in that thar neck
o' the woods. Then they'd git you to do some triflin' work about the
still--feed the furnace, or stir the mash--jest so 's 't they could
prove that you took a hand in it your own self."

"What good would that do?"

"Hit would make you one o' them in the eyes of the law."

"I see. But, really, doesn't that seem rather childish? I could easily
convince any court that I did it under compulsion; for that's what it
would amount to."

"I reckon you-uns would find a United States court purty hard to
convince. The judge 'd right up and want to know why you let grass go to
seed afore you came and informed on them."

He paused, watched my expression, and then continued quizzically: "I
reckon you wouldn't be in no great hurry to do _that_."

"No! Then, if I stirred the mash and sampled their liquor, nobody would
be likely to mistreat me?"

"Shucks! Why, man, whut could they gain by hurtin' you? At the wust,
s'posin' they was convicted by your own evidence, they'd only git a
month or two in the pen. So why should they murder you and get hung for
it? Hit's all 'tarnal foolishness, the notions some folks has!"

"I thought so. Now, here! the public has been fed all sorts of nonsense
about this moonshining business. I'd