"His brother makes it up in the hills, and
it is as strong as wood lye."
"Moonshine! I have heard of it. We must have some for rainy days."
It was a new world to John Armitage, and his heart was as light as the
morning air as he followed Oscar along the ruddy mountain road. He was in
Virginia, and somewhere on this soil, perhaps in some valley like the one
through which he rode, Shirley Claiborne had gazed upon blue distances,
with ridge rising against ridge, and dark pine-covered slopes like these
he saw for the first time. He had left his affairs in Washington in a
sorry muddle; but he faced the new day with a buoyant spirit, and did not
trouble himself to look very far ahead. He had a definite business before
him; his cablegrams were reassuring on that point. The fact that he was,
in a sense, a fugitive did not trouble him in the least. He had no
intention of allowing Jules Chauvenet's assassins to kill him, or of
being locked up in a Washington jail as the false Baron von Kissel. If he
admitted that he was not John Armitage, it would be difficult to prove
that he was anybody else--a fact touching human testimony which Jules
Chauvenet probably knew perfectly well.
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