When Steve and Nancy reached home they found Mr. Follet in bed suffering intensely with sciatic pains. He fretted constantly, declaring he would get up whether or no by afternoon. He was obliged to make a trip into the country for a load of hay, able or not, that evening, he said. Steve offered to go for him, but Mr. Follet impatiently declared that n.o.body could do it but himself, as there was some other business to be attended to at the same time.

The pain continued so severe, however, that getting up was an impossibility, and about seven o'clock after fretting and fuming for hours, occupying Mrs. Follet and Nancy continually, he said to his wife:

"Go tell Steve to come here."

Mrs. Follet obeyed and brought Steve in from the porch where he sat supposedly reading, Nancy being busy then with the supper dishes.

"Now you go out, ma, and don't come back till I tell you," said Mr.

Follet querulously, and his wife went wonderingly.

"Steve," said Mr. Follet as soon as the young man entered, "I know I can trust you, and I am going to get you to do some important business for me."

"I will certainly do anything for you, Mr. Follet, with great pleasure, and I appreciate more than I can tell you the fact that you feel you can trust me," said Steve warmly.

"Well," said Mr. Follet, a little uneasily, "this is mighty partic'ler business I've got. The fact is," he went on with nervous energy, "a part of the world is getting so good it ain't content with just being good itself but is bound and determined that the rest of the world shall do just as it says, and there's a good bit of difference of opinion about what goodness strictly is."

Steve listened a little surprised at the homily. Then Mr. Follet went on:

"I ain't ever cared anything about liquor myself, though I could have had all I wanted all my life long, but I am willing other people should make it, and have it, or sell it, all they want to."

Steve looked more surprised and his lips settled just a little into firmer lines, but Mr. Follet failed to notice it.

"Now, old Kaintuck, which has always been the freest state in the Union, has got a pa.s.sle o' folks turned loose in it just like the folks I was telling you about. They're so good themselves they ain't satisfied till they make everybody else do just as they say. They're making laws in the towns that no liquor can be sold, and I tell you men of old Kaintuck ain't goin' to stand that and I don't blame 'em,"

he concluded vehemently.

Steve started to reply, his lips growing firmer, and his eyes taking fire, but Mr. Follet gave him no chance.

"Now, I promised some fellows that I would meet 'em to-night,--and bring home a load of hay," he ended with an excited laugh.

"A load of hay with whiskey enclosed?" asked Steve, instantly suspecting.

"Yes," said Mr. Follet, delighted with Steve's quickness, "that's the idee. Then I unload it in my barn and ship it as I please to these dry towns. I'm in for the law as a general thing," he added quickly, "but I believe in folks having their rights."

"Well, Mr. Follet," said Steve, going to the foot of the bed and leaning hard upon it, "we must understand each other at once. I do not agree with you as to our rights. I do not think we have the right to destroy ourselves or others with any weapon whatsoever, the pistol, the knife, poison or whiskey. I am with the law in every particular,"

he said firmly.

"With the law," exclaimed Mr. Follet excitedly, "when it says a man can't do with his own corn on his own place what he wants to do with it? A man's got as good a right, in my mind, to put up a still and make whiskey out of his corn as his wife has to gather apples and make pies!" he concluded, fairly quivering with excitement.

Steve held himself quietly, and said gently:

"Mr. Follet, you are too ill for me to discuss these things with you now. I see we look at them from totally different points of view."

"There ain't but one point of view," shrilly returned Mr. Follet, "and that's the point of view of man's rights. Why, it won't be long till a man can't milk his own cow without the government standing round to watch her switch her tail and tell him how to do it,--all ready to grab the money if he sells a little to a neighbour!"

"Well, Mr. Follet," said Steve, looking steadily but kindly in the enraged eyes of his opponent, "there is one thing that we do agree upon, and that is, every man has a right to his own opinion," and the kindness in Steve's eyes merged into his sudden smile, which stemmed a little the rising tide of Mr. Follet's wrath.

After a somewhat subdued pause he turned to Steve appealingly:

"But you will go and get this load for me,--you will have no responsibility about it. I have never had anything to do with moonshiners before," he went on, "but Raymond got in with 'em and thinks it would be a huge joke to send a lot of their whiskey to his friends in these 'dry towns,' and that prohibition business has riled me so that I promised I would help pa.s.s the stuff along. Raymond's going to hang around the saloon and the station to see that the coast is clear o' government men, while the thing is goin' on."

"No," said Steve instantly and firmly when Mr. Follet was through, "I cannot do it, Mr. Follet, greatly as it grieves me to refuse you a favour. I feel that whiskey, the knife and the pistol have been Kentucky's greatest curses, especially among the people of the mountains. I would lay down my life, if necessary, for mountain folks, but I long instead to spend it for them in replacing the pistol and the knife with the book and the pen, and in cultivating among them a thirst for knowledge instead of drink," said Steve with quiet pa.s.sion which held Mr. Follet's unwilling attention. Then he added:

"Understand me, Mr. Follet, I do not attempt to decide for you what is right or wrong, I only know that I cannot do this thing you ask and keep my self-respect. I must live within the laws of my country even if I should feel sometimes that they are unjust, and I can never take even a remote part in the distribution of whiskey in the land I love,"

he concluded earnestly.

At this Mr. Follet fairly shouted in a sudden access of rage. He was all the more angry for the moment because in the light of Steve's clear statement he not only felt that Steve was right, but that he himself was wrong.

"Then leave my house this instant with your contemptible idees about Kentucky's rights, and don't dare to stop and speak to my wife or my daughter."

"It is your house, Mr. Follet; I will do just as you say," Steve replied.

Mr. Follet reiterated shrilly:

"Go on out of my house then, and don't you ever come near it again."

Steve bowed and left, not even stopping to get his travelling bag; in fact he forgot he had one, and only caught up his hat from the porch as he pa.s.sed out.

XVII

FRUITION

Mrs. Follet and Nancy knew that something very exciting was going on between Mr. Follet and Steve and both were exceedingly anxious. When silence took the place of heated discussion they could bear it no longer and went to Mr. Follet's door.

Mrs. Follet had never seen her husband so wrought up before, though he had always been of an exciteable temperament. She did not dare ask a question, but busied herself doing little things for his comfort while Nancy brought in his supper, which he had not wanted earlier and still querulously refused to touch.

A terrible silence settled upon them all. Nancy sat on the porch in distressed wonder over what had happened between her father and Steve, while Mrs. Follet, equally anxious, sat silently by the bed of the restless man. She proposed to get a neighbour to go for the doctor, but Mr. Follet wouldn't hear of it. Hours pa.s.sed by and then Mr.

Follet suddenly started up in bed.

"My G.o.d," he cried wildly, "they'll kill him!"

"Who?" cried his wife, starting up also, while Nancy's white face at once appeared in the door.

"Why, Steve," screamed Mr. Follet. "He's gone, and I don't doubt he went straight to old man Greely's for the night. If he did, he's cut across the woods and run into some moonshiners. They'll take him for a government man and shoot him soon's they lay eyes on him!"

He paused for breath, and Mrs. Follet and Nancy were too appalled to speak.

"Do something," screamed Mr. Follet; "I can't have the boy's blood on my hands!"

Then Mrs. Follet with her gentle strength made him quiet down enough to tell them particulars, and she learned that Mr. Follet was to have gone after a load of hay, and coming back would stop at the edge of the wood leading to old man Greely's, walk into the woods a piece to meet the men, and then, if the coast was clear, they'd hide the liquor in the hay load. At the end she said:

"You must go, Nancy----"

"Yes," cried Mr. Follet, "you must go, child, and save Steve. Jim Sutton will know you. They won't touch you, and they'll believe you. I was a fool ever to have anything to do with that moonshine business!"

But Nancy was already out of the room flying for the stable. There was no thought of riding habit or saddle. Throwing a bridle over Gyp's head, she sprang upon his back and like the wind the two rushed forth into the midnight stillness. Would she be in time to save him? It had been so long since he left the house. Oh, would she be too late? She urged Gyp wildly on and on, along the road directly towards the Greely woods, where she would find the moonshiners, and perhaps,--oh, perhaps! G.o.d only knew what else she might find.