look. I've branched out where I would have better played my own game and
been content with things as they were going. I----" But he broke off
suddenly; he was close to the edge of disloyalty now. "What makes you so
sure?" he asked.

"I came up this time from Georgetown. You remember the old trail, up by
Gerle's, Red Cliff and Hell Hole, leaving French Meadows and Heaven's
Gate and Mount Mildred 'way off to the left. I had it all pretty much
my own way until I came to Lookout Ridge. And who do you suppose I found
poking around there?"

"Not old Loony Honeycutt!" cried Gaynor. Then he laughed at himself for
allowing an association of ideas to lead to so absurd a thought. "Of
course not Honeycutt; I saw him last week, as you wanted me to, and he
is cabin-bound down in Coloma as usual. Can't drag his wicked old feet
out of his yard. Who, then, Mark?"

"Swen Brodie then. And Andy Parker."

Gaynor frowned, impressed as King had been before him.

"But," he objected as he pondered, "he might have been there for some
other reason. Brodie, I mean. Remember that the ancient and
time-honoured pastimes of the Kentucky mountains have come into vogue in
the West. Everybody knows, and that includes even the government agents
in San Francisco, that there is a lot of moonshine being made in
out-of-the-way places of the California mountains. There's a job for
Swen Brodie and his crowd. There's talk of it, Mark."

"Maybe," King admitted. "But Brodie was looking for something, and not