CHAPTER XXIV

SCOTT GOES AFTER THE MARSHAL

Scott did not lose any time on the trail to the town where the United States marshal made his headquarters, but it was a long day’s hike and he had not started much before the middle of the afternoon. Night caught him while he was still on the mountain trails. The sky was cloudy, and down in the dense woods it was black as a pocket. He knew that he would save time and effort by camping out for the night and getting an early start in the morning. He was not gaining anything by feeling his way along inch by inch in the dark. He stumbled into an ice-cold trout stream and gave it up.

The nights were cold there in the mountains, and he was feeling around for some firewood when he saw a light glimmering through the trees far down the trail. As his feet were already wet he waded across the stream and made his way slowly toward the light.

It proved to be a lamp in a small logging camp. It was a comparatively small cabin with the cook stove and dining table in one end of it. The walls of the rest of the room were lined with double-decked bunks. Every one seemed to be in bed except an old woman who was reading at the dining table. She looked up indifferently when Scott knocked at the door.

“Good evening,” he said. “Night caught me up here on the trail. Is there any place here where I can get a bed?”

The woman looked at him suspiciously for a minute and seemed to be undecided whether or not to call her husband. Then she pointed to an empty bed in the corner.

“I don’t want to crowd you here,” Scott apologized.

“You won’t bother nobody,” the woman replied without looking up from her book.

Scott did not think much of his reception. He had not had anything to eat since morning, but the looks of the place did not encourage him to ask for anything. It would be better than sleeping out in the cold without blankets even if he were hungry. He walked over to the bunk and crawled in without any further ceremony than taking off his shoes.

For a few minutes he lay there and marveled at the tremendous chorus of snores which seemed to be coming from all parts of the little cabin, but he soon fell asleep in spite of the music and his hunger. In the morning Scott was astonished to see the number of people who rolled out of those bunks—men, women and children. It was evidently a big family, but he was not sure he had seen them all.

After the way he had been received the night before, Scott intended to thank them for the lodging and depart without breakfast, but the man would not have it so.

“Where did you get supper?” he asked.

“I did not have any,” Scott replied a little spitefully.

The man was very much put out and insisted on Scott’s staying to breakfast. Scott accepted, but before he was through he was sorry he had not stuck to his original purpose of going away hungry. When the man learned he was running the logging job on the other side of the mountain, he became so interested that Scott had a hard time getting away from him. If he had seen one of the boys slip around the house and run off up the trail in the direction from which he had come the night before, he might have been suspicious of so many questions.

It was seven o’clock before he got away from these people and started for the town. Even at that the marshal was not up when he arrived. He had recovered from his logging camp breakfast sufficiently to eat another at the little hotel while he was waiting for the marshal.

Scott had never heard anything but curses for the United States marshal from the mountaineers and had formed a picture of him that was rudely shattered when he saw the reality. Instead of the shiftless, cringing old man he expected to see, he found a keen, alert, energetic man of about forty-five. He had been a sharpshooter in the Spanish War and was every inch a man.

“Now what can I do for you?” he asked briskly, when Scott had introduced himself.

“I am running a logging job on the other side of the mountain,” Scott explained, “and there is a moonshine still over there that is causing me all kinds of trouble. I thought maybe I could get you to clean it up for me. The man who is running it is an incendiary and a murderer as well as a moonshiner.”

“Sounds as though it might be Foster Wait,” the marshal said with a frown.

“It is,” Scott said.

“Then you may be able to get him in the courts for arson or murder if you can produce the evidence, but I am afraid I can’t help you much. I have put in days looking for that still, have searched every square inch of his place, but have never been able to find a trace of it. That has been a sore spot with me for several years.”

“But the still isn’t on his place,” Scott said.

“Do you mean to say that you know where it is?” the marshal cried eagerly.

“Yes,” Scott said, “I stumbled on to it in the woods one day.”

“But if it is not on his place, can you prove that it is his?” the marshal asked doubtfully.

“Yes,” Scott said. “I know a man who is familiar with it and will swear to it.”

“Good!” the marshal exclaimed, jumping enthusiastically to his feet. “Come on over to the judge and we’ll swear out a warrant for this bird. Didn’t see anybody on the way over here, did you?”

“Yes,” Scott said. “Foster saw me just before I started,” and he explained his experience.

“Still that was a long way from here and he may not have guessed where you were going. See anybody else?”

“I spent the night at a little logging camp up here on the mountain a ways,” Scott admitted, “but they seemed too dumb to know anything.”

“Yes, they seem dumb enough, but they have notified Foster long ago that you came this way. I doubt if we can get him now, but I’ll fix that still for you.”

The judge was as interested as the marshal. “I’d like to get that fellow,” he exclaimed. “There was a crazy man in a big iron hat down here some weeks ago who wanted me to arrest him for something he had not yet done, but we have never been able to get any real charge against him that any one would support.”

“I’ll support this one,” Scott said doggedly. “He’s the key man in that feud over there and I am going to put him in the penitentiary if it takes me all summer.”

“All right, then, let’s go,” the marshal exclaimed. “Did you hoof it over here?”

“Yes,” Scott said. “I didn’t have a horse handy, and, anyway, I thought I could make better time over these mountain trails on foot.”

“Well, you couldn’t if you had my horse, but I’ll walk with you this time. We’ll be off the trail a good deal and I don’t want to be too conspicuous.”

They went back by another trail which the marshal knew to avoid the logging camp and any one who might be looking for them. When the marshal started out anywhere, it was usually well heralded all over the mountain.

They were walking rapidly up a steep mountain trail when the marshal suddenly stopped and held up his hand. Scott peeped through the bushes and was surprised to see that they were in sight of the trail on the main ridge just above the still. He followed the direction of the marshal’s pointing finger and saw one of Foster’s boys earnestly watching the trail Scott had gone down the day before.

They made a detour and crossed the main ridge trail back of the boy. Just as they started down the slope toward the still, three rifle shots rang out in the valley below.

“There is something doing down there,” the marshal whispered. “Sounds as though we ought to have brought the sheriff and a bunch of deputies.”