Meantime down the ravine in the obscure little still-house our were held in durance by Tolliver and his obedient moon-shiners.  
It was a puzzling situation to all concerned. Far from wishing or intending to harm his prisoners, Tolliver still could not see his way clear to setting them at liberty. On the other hand he was clever enough to perceive that to hold them very long would be sure to lead to disaster, for their friends would institute a search and at the same time telegraph an account of their all over the country.
 
“’Pears ter me like I’ve ketched bigger game ’an my trap’ll hold,” he thought, as he stood in the door-way surveying his victims.
 
“What ye all a doin’ a monkeyin’ round’ these yer premerses, anyhow?” he demanded. “W’y c’udn’t ye jest wait ’ll I sent for ye ter kem yer?”
 
“It’s a sort of surprise party, my dear sir,” said Cattleton. “Don’t you see?”
 
“S’prise set o’ meddlin’ Yankees a foolin’ roun’ wher’ they air not got no business at,” responded Tolliver, “that’s w’at I calls it.”
 
“Where’s your pantry?” inquired Punner, “I’m as hungry as a wolf.”
 
“Hongry, air ye? What’d ye ’spect ter git ter eat at er still-house, anyhow? Hain’t ye[126] got no sense er tall? Air ye er plum blasted eejit?”
 
Tolliver made these in a voice and manner suggestive of suppressed but utter .
 
“Oh he’s always hungry, he would starve in a feed-store,” exclaimed Cattleton. “Don’t pay the least attention to him, Mr. Tolliver. He’s hungry.”
 
“W’y ef the man’s really hongry——” Tolliver began to say in a sympathetic tone.
 
“Here,” interrupted Hubbard gruffly, “let us out of this immediately, can’t you? The ladies can’t bear this air much longer, it’s beastly.”
 
“Mebbe hit air you ’at air a running this yer chebang,” said Tolliver with a . “I’ll jes’ let ye out w’en I git ready an’ not a minute sooner, nother. So ye’ve hearn my tin horn.”
 
Miss Stackpole and Miss Crabb made notes in amazing haste.
 
Hubbard his heavy shoulders and bit his lip. He was baffled.
 
“Do you think they’ll kill us?” murmured Miss Moyne in Dufour’s ear.
 
Dufour could not answer.
 
Crane and his “pap’s uncle Pete” were still hobnobbing over the .
 
“Yer’s a lookin’ at ye, boy, an’ a hopin’ agin hope ’at ye may turn out ter be es likely a man es yer pap,” the old man was saying, preliminary to another .
 
Crane was bowing with extreme politeness in[127] acknowledgement of the sentiment, and was saying:
 
“I am told that I look like my father——”
 
“Yes, ye do look a leetle like im,” interrupted the old man with a leer over the jug, “but l’me say at it air dern leetle, boy, dern leetle!”
 
Punner overhearing this reply, laughed uproariously. Crane appeared to the whole force of the joke, however. He was simply waiting for his turn at the jug.
 
“As I wer’ a sayin’,” resumed the old man, “yer’s er hopin’ agin’ hope, an’ a lookin’ at ye——”
 
“How and disgusting!” cried Mrs. Nancy Jones Black. “I must leave here, I cannot bear it longer! This is nothing but a low, vile dram-shop! Let me pass!”
 
She attempted to go through the , but Tolliver .
 
“Stay wher’ ye air,” he said, in a respectful but very stern tone. “Ye can’t git out o’ yer jist yit.”
 
“Dear me! Dear me!” Mrs. Black, “what an , what an insult! Are you men?” she cried, turning upon the gentlemen near her, “and will you this?”
 
“Give me your handkerchiefs again,” said Cattleton, “and I will once more out my head; ’tis all that I can do!”
 
“Shoot the fust............