meantime down the ravine in the obscure little still-house our pedestrians were held in durance vile by tolliver and his obedient moon-shiners.

it was a puzzling situation to all concerned. far from wishing or intending to harm his prisoners, tolliver still could not see his way clear to setting them at liberty. on the other hand he was clever enough to perceive that to hold them very long would be sure to lead to disaster, for their friends would institute a search and at the same time telegraph an account of their disappearance all over the country.

“’pears ter me like i’ve ketched bigger game ’an my trap’ll hold,” he thought, as he stood in the door-way surveying his victims.

“what ye all a doin’ a monkeyin’ round’ these yer premerses, anyhow?” he demanded. “w’y c’udn’t ye jest wait ’ll i sent for ye ter kem yer?”

“it’s a sort of surprise party, my dear sir,” said cattleton. “don’t you see?”

“s’prise set o’ meddlin’ yankees a foolin’ roun’ wher’ they air not got no business at,” responded tolliver, “that’s w’at i calls it.”

“where’s your pantry?” inquired punner, “i’m as hungry as a wolf.”

“hongry, air ye? what’d ye ’spect ter git ter eat at er still-house, anyhow? hain’t ye[126] got no sense er tall? air ye er plum blasted eejit?”

tolliver made these inquiries in a voice and manner suggestive of suppressed but utter wrath.

“oh he’s always hungry, he would starve in a feed-store,” exclaimed cattleton. “don’t pay the least attention to him, mr. tolliver. he’s incurably hungry.”

“w’y ef the man’s really hongry——” tolliver began to say in a sympathetic tone.

“here,” interrupted hubbard gruffly, “let us out of this immediately, can’t you? the ladies can’t bear this foul air much longer, it’s beastly.”

“mebbe hit air you ’at air a running this yer chebang,” said tolliver with a scowl. “i’ll jes’ let ye out w’en i git ready an’ not a minute sooner, nother. so ye’ve hearn my tin horn.”

miss stackpole and miss crabb made notes in amazing haste.

hubbard shrugged his heavy shoulders and bit his lip. he was baffled.

“do you think they’ll kill us?” murmured miss moyne in dufour’s ear.

dufour could not answer.

crane and his “pap’s uncle pete” were still hobnobbing over the jug.

“yer’s a lookin’ at ye, boy, an’ a hopin’ agin hope ’at ye may turn out ter be es likely a man es yer pap,” the old man was saying, preliminary to another draught.

crane was bowing with extreme politeness in[127] acknowledgement of the sentiment, and was saying:

“i am told that i look like my father——”

“yes, ye do look a leetle like im,” interrupted the old man with a leer over the jug, “but l’me say at it air dern leetle, boy, dern leetle!”

punner overhearing this reply, laughed uproariously. crane appeared oblivious to the whole force of the joke, however. he was simply waiting for his turn at the jug.

“as i wer’ a sayin’,” resumed the old man, “yer’s er hopin’ agin’ hope, an’ a lookin’ at ye——”

“how utterly brutal and disgusting!” cried mrs. nancy jones black. “i must leave here, i cannot bear it longer! this is nothing but a low, vile dram-shop! let me pass!”

she attempted to go through the doorway, but tolliver interfered.

“stay wher’ ye air,” he said, in a respectful but very stern tone. “ye can’t git out o’ yer jist yit.”

“dear me! dear me!” wailed mrs. black, “what an outrage, what an insult! are you men?” she cried, turning upon the gentlemen near her, “and will you brook this?”

“give me your handkerchiefs again,” said cattleton, “and i will once more poke out my head; ’tis all that i can do!”

“shoot the fust head ’at comes out’n thet ther winder, dave!” ordered tolliver, speaking to some one outside.

[128]

“i don’t care for any handkerchiefs, thank you,” said cattleton, “i’ve changed my mind.”

miss moyne was holding dufour’s arm with a nervous clutch, her eyes were full of tears, and she was trembling violently. he strove to quiet her by telling her that there was no danger, that he would shield her, die for her and all that; but tolliver looked so grim and the situation was so strange and threatening that she could not control herself.

“goodness! but isn’t this rich material,” miss crabb soliloquized, writing in her little red book with might and main. “bret harte never discovered anything better.”

miss henrietta stackpole was too busy absorbing the human interest of the interview between the two cranes, to be more than indirectly aware of anything else that was going on around her.

“ye needn’t be erfeard as ter bein’ hurt, boy,” said the old man, “not es long es yer pap’s uncle pete air eroun’ yer. hit ain’t often ’at i meets up wi’ kinfolks downyer, an’ w’en i does meet up wi’ ’em i treats ’em es er southern gen’l’man orter treat his kinfolks.”

“precisely so,” said crane, taking another sip, “hospitality is a crowning southern virtue. when i go up to louisville henry watterson and i always have a good time.”

“spect ye do, boy, spect ye do. louisville use ter be a roarin’ good place ter be at.”

tolliver, whose wits had been hard at work,[129] now proposed what he called “terms o’ pay-roll, like what they hed in the war.”

“ef ye’ll all take a oath an’ swa’ at ye’ll never tell nothin’ erbout nothin,” said he, “w’y i’ll jest let ye off this yer time.”

“that is fair enough,” said dufour, “we are not in the detective service.”

“then,” observed tolliver, “ef i ken git the ’tention of this yer meetin’, i move ’at it air yerby considered swore ’at nothin’ air ter be said erbout nothin’ at no time an’ never. do ye all swa’?”

“yes!” rang out a chorus of voices.

“hit air cyarried,” said tolliver, “an’ the meetin’ air dismissed, sigh er die. ye kin all go on erbout yer business.”

the pedestrians filed out into the open air feeling greatly relieved. crane lingered to have a few more passages with his sociable and hospitable grand-uncle. indeed he remained until the rest of the party had passed out of sight up the ravine and he did not reach the hotel until far in the night, when he sang some songs under miss moyne’s window.

taken altogether, the pedestrians felt that they had been quite successful in their excursion.

dufour was happiness itself. on the way back he had chosen for himself and miss moyne a path which separated them from the others, giving him an opportunity to say a great deal to her.

now it is a part of our common stock of[130] understanding that when a man has an excellent and uninterrupted opportunity to say a great deal to a beautiful young woman, he usually does not find himself able to say much; still he rarely fails to make himself understood.

they both looked so self-consciously happy (when they arrived a little later than the rest at hotel helicon) that suspicion would have been aroused but for two startling and all-absorbing disclosures which drove away every other thought.

one was the disclosure of the fact that dufour was not dufour, but george dunkirk, and the other was the disclosure of the fact that the high sheriff of mt. boab county was in hotel helicon on important official business.

little mrs. philpot was the first to discover that the great publisher really had not practiced any deception as to his name. indeed her album showed that the signature therein was, after all, george dunkirk and not gaspard dufour. the autograph was not very plain, it is true, but it was decipherable and the mistake was due to her own bad reading.

if the sheriff had been out of the question the humiliation felt by the authors, for whom dunkirk was publisher and who had talked so outrageously about him, would have crushed them into the dust; but the sheriff was there in his most terrible form, and he forced himself upon their consideration with his quiet but effective methods of legal procedure.