Feb. 22, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
291 
Sometimes it disappeared altogether; at other 
times it was visible for several yards before it 
lost itself among the moss and granite. It was 
evidently a good deal larger in the fall and 
spr.ng, for in places the water had worn the 
rocks bare. Then I found what I was look¬ 
ing for; the tracks of two people deeply printed 
in the moss. They were going toward the lake. 
I followed them back fifty or sixty yards, and 
Tom Crib and I smelt the mixed odor of burn¬ 
ing kerosene and smoked herrings cooking. 
Another minute and we were in a clearing some 
thirty yards square. There was neither tent, 
shanty nor fire-place in it. An enormous pile 
of boulders rose to a height of thirty feet or so 
on one side of it. and seated on a rock, smoking 
a short black pipe, was a short thick-set indi¬ 
vidual with his head tied up in a bloody rag. 
The tops of divers trees had been lopped, and 
the pool and meadow I had camped at the pre¬ 
vious night were in plain view of the clearing. 
The gentleman with the sanguinary head-dress 
was contemplating the view so intently that I 
was halfway across the clearing before he saw 
me. 
“Howly Saints!” he exclaimed, as he saw the 
gun and the dog. “I was thinking you gone 
away and left us.” 
At this exclamation another man appeared 
from behind the pile of boulders. “Was you 
calling?” he began, then he, too, saw me. 
“Sure an’ the game’s up, Louis; least said 
soonest mended. I tould you it wasn’t Bernard 
Cormier, but you would have your way. I 
came near gettin’ kilt, and now we’ve lost the 
whole season’s work through your fooling.” 
So spoke the first individual. I was racking 
my brains to remember where and when I had 
seen that face and heard that voice before. The 
gentleman who had appeared from the rocks like a 
demon on Walpurgis night was a stranger to 
me. “You both of you deserve to be killed,” I 
replied, “and the chances are that if you play 
those fool tricks again you will be, Did I hit 
you when I fired at you last night? If I did, 
it’s your own fault. I meant to scare you and 
not to shoot you.” 
I said this in a most matter-of-fact way, as if 
taking pot shots at ghosts in the dark was an 
everyday occurrence with me. The effect of 
my words on the gentleman of Irish extraction 
was magical. 
“Don’t you remember me, sorr? Louis, 
this isn’t any revenuer, he’s just a dacent civil 
man like ourselves. If we’d only known who it 
was, never the bit of trouble you’d have had 
last night. Louis here thought it was old 
Bernard Cormier, the bear catcher. He didn’t 
want him nosing around, and Bernard’s scared 
of his own shadow after dark. You don’t re¬ 
member me, an' small wonder, for I’ve grown 
my beard.” 
Then it dawned upon me that I was convers¬ 
ing with “the godless Irishman,” Pius O'Learey 
from Parbuckle Cove. I had doctored a sick 
dog for him a couple of years previously; and 
when the dog recovered, we had shot black 
ducks and yellowlegs together. , 
“What are you doing here, Pius?” I asked. 
“I’m making potheen, your honor,” he re¬ 
plied in the same casual way an ordinary man 
would have told me he was making hay. 
He led the way to the pile of rocks and 
entered a hole just large enough for a man to 
crawl through. Louis followed him, and then 
Tom Crib and I entered. I found myself in a 
species of camp with three walls of massive 
granite. The fourth side was composed of 
sloping logs thickly covered with moss. The 
floor of the shebeen was about 15 by 20 feet 
and the “ceiling” was 10 or 12 feet high. A 
10-gallon still was in full operation. It was 
heated by two powerful kerosene burners. An 
assortment of aluminum cooking utensils hung 
on divers pegs, and a kerosene cooking stove 
and a small sheet-iron camp stove stood side 
by side on the floor. I recognized both stoves 
and cooking utensils as the property of an 
American gentleman who had been fishing in 
the district the previous year. He left them in 
his camp, intending to return for a moose hunt 
in the fall. He was unable to come, and some 
one stole the outfit, to Paddy Ryan’s great dis¬ 
gust. 
“We burn hardly any wood here,” Pius re¬ 
marked. “Kerosene is far less trouble when 
you once get it carried in. There’s no chopping 
and no signs of cutting to make people wonder 
who’s been using round. We’ve burnt the best 
part of two barrels of kerosene this summer. 
Next year if the Lord lets me live. I’m going 
to Halifax, and I shall use gas there. We ran 
all our ‘beer’ through a fortnight ago, and now 
we’re running off the low wines. That is high 
wines you see coming from the worm now. 
Would you care to taste some of our potheen? 
It’s about the best I ever made, and I’ve been 
making of it off and on for thirty years.” 
He went to a 5'gallon keg and drew off a gill 
or so of its contents. “It’s all ready reduced 
for our own drinking. I do my reducing with 
the beads, not with the fire test like most 
people do in these parts. I have all my grand¬ 
father’s things. That pot was his (pointing to 
the still with pride.) It’s solid copper, and the 
worm is the best of block tin. The beads were 
his, too. He stole them from an exciseman in 
the old country before he came to these parts.” 
I tasted the potion he had drawn for me. It 
was neither whiskey, brandy nor rum. It 
lacked the vile taste and odor of the ordinary 
“white-eye”; in fact, it tasted rather good. 
“Give me the right stuff to work with and a 
chance to work with it, and I can make potheen 
fit for the king or the pope. If your honor 
fancies a little cruiskeen of our stuff, I can fill 
one for you in a minute. Now, we’re poor men 
trying to make an honest living, and we don't 
sell one drop of this stuff round these parts; 
it all goes to St. John or Halifax. Sure, your 
honor wouldn’t have, the heart to ‘speak the 
hard word’ for the few dollars there’d be in it? 
Anyway, we’re not making our fortunes, for the 
half of all we make goes to the one who finds 
the grub and molasses and kerosene, and we 
have to sack out all we make in five-gallon 
kegs.” 
In an instant Angus McKeen’s anxiety to 
keep me away from the haunted camping ground 
came to my memory; also the fact that the oil 
company had a judgment against him for five 
barrels of oil, and a wholesale grocer in St. 
John had entered suit against him for two pun¬ 
cheons of molasses supplied to him during the 
past winter. 
“Of course Angus has to have more than you 
do, when he puts up the cash, and you only 
give your time,” I replied. “You must have 
made over a thousand dollars’ worth of potheen 
this summer, and that would give you two 
hundred and fifty dollars each and your grub. 
That’s not so bad for three months’ work.” The 
shaft was drawn at a venture, but it went home. 
“Now I’m not in the pay of the inland revenue 
department, and I shall say nothing about what 
I’ve seen this morning, provided you do not sell 
your potheen round town. There’s one thing 
I want you to show me, though. That is how 
you worked those lights last night. 
“You come ’long wit’ us; I show you,” said 
Louis, breaking his silence for the first time. 
“’Spose we go to Halifax; mebee you feel like 
tak’ leetle share wit’ us. We use you right. We 
make more money one mont’ dere dan we make 
in whole summer here. Now you come wit’ us, 
I show you.” 
The "illusion was simplicity itself. Small 
staples had been driven into two trees on op¬ 
posite sides of the pool, about twenty feet 
from the ground. A single strand of fine 
copper wire ran from one side to the other. One 
end was attached to a staple, the other passed 
through the opposite one. The wire could be re¬ 
moved when not in use, or by simply slacking 
up the free end, it would sink into the pool 
and be out of sight. It was such a mere thread 
that the keenest eye could never have detected 
it. The light was hung on the wire by means 
of a ring. Two slender wires were attached to 
it, and it could be hauled backward and for¬ 
ward as seemed expedient to the operators. 
The big flare I saw last was manufactured from 
oil-soaked waste set on fire by a bit of slow match 
having a puff of gunpowder attached to it. 
Pius had really experienced a narrow escape. 
My bullet struck a rock not five feet from him, 
and a spatter of lead or a flying cnip of granite 
had cut his scalp to the bone. Of course the 
thing was pure chance, bit to this day he be¬ 
lieves that I located him by sound, and shot 
accordingly. I requested to see the light which 
they used first. It was my acetylene bicycle 
lamp, stolen from Jean De Vaux’s barn some 
months ago. I replevined it then and there; 
also the remainder of my bicycle kit. 
For divers reasons I kept my 'knowledge to 
myself. Some three or four months later, 
Terrio called on me and informed me that he 
was going to Halifax, and meant to “open 
leetle shop in front, wit’ two tree pots in back.” 
He informed me that Angus McKeen had used 
them “var’ badly,” which was no more than I 
expected. I declined his offer of a small* share 
in the new venture, and it was a fortunate thing 
I did so. The revenue department got a “tip" 
from some one, and my friend, exciseman 
Fergusson, made a raid on the establishment 
one night. He captured two “pots,” a quantity 
of “beer” and a considerable amount of low 
wines and rectified spirit. He also gathered in 
all the correspondence and accounts of the 
“firm.” Pius and Louis made their exit over 
the roof and escaped. Angus McKeen’s name 
figured in their correspondence, and he had 
troubles of his own for some time. He finally 
escaped imprisonment by paying a five-hundred- 
dollar fine and turning informer on the parties 
in St. John who had bought his contraband. 
If you wish to hear an elder of the Reformed 
Apostolic church swear, call on Angus some 
day and ask him to tell you what he knows 
about the Fi-follet. 
