A VANISHING ROMANCE 205 
woods, patrolling some lonely path, gun on shoulder. 
If you asked him what he was doing he looked at 
you with kind and guileless eyes and told you he 
was "lookin' for squirrels," and as soon as you had 
passed he discharged his rifle, not into your quiver- 
ing body, but into the air to inform his confederates 
that somebody was coming. He wore no mark of 
Cain upon his brow, often he was a handsome fellow, 
clever and fearless. You might know him for months, 
even buy eggs or mustard greens of him or his off- 
spring, without suspecting the truth. 
The moonshiner required gifts of a high order to 
succeed in his precarious calling. If caught distilling, 
there was a heavy fine and a term in prison, and 
whoever pleased could get ready money for betray- 
ing his hiding-place, a severe strain on the loyalty of 
impecunious or unfriendly neighbors. He owned a 
piece of land and raised corn on it, but not corn 
enough. He was always buying meal or carrying 
com to the mill to be ground. Sometimes he took 
a little to several mills, but that deceived no one. 
Everybody knew he got a bag of meal at Scrugg's 
mill on Monday, another at the Pumpkin Patch mill 
on Tuesday, and a third at the Bear Wallow on 
Thursday, and everybody knew what he did with it, 
though if you asked him you would be gravely in- 
formed that he " fed hawgs." 
He was honest, always leaving full measure in the 
bottle he found behind a stump. The method of ex- 
change was simple: You put your bottle in company 
with money behind a stump in the woods; then you 
