The Press., 1895-04-18
(COntinued.) w. C. T. U. DEPARTMENT. 'Stillery Lu.
BY MARTHA YOUNG.

Time crept slowly along. Feb was less and less at home. The marrow fields O corn were unworked and netted witt grasses and rank weeds, the later crops were unsown. Ma Kato feared her letter had miscarried. On a golden midday the old woman with her daughter had started down the mountain to the cabin of Sut Bates. Her heart was heavier than on tho night when she made the long distance alone. She had been full of hope then Despair had taken hold of her now. She saw no way of saving her son but by tho breaking up of the still, and now tha seemed an impossibility. The grinding walls were constantly heard on all tho mountain sides where the cave echoes could creep. Misery grew in the sparst settlements a-noar, and Nick Scarlet! gang" included nearly every young mal nthat slope of Sand mountain.
 Ma Kato left Lu at the Bates cabir while she walked the two miles farther to the village with the hope of selling the batch of homespun yarn she carried for need was sore at tho home. Her yarn disposed of, she noted an un usual stir in the village. There were spruce city men about the streets anc every man of the village was trying tc hire out horse to the newcomers.
 Presently to her old ears came the vel come word, "Raiders! A raid on SanC Mountain tonight! '" Her old hear leaped with joy. Then she heard ''stor' man" say warningly, "Mind out There's one lem, she's one 'em." She felt as i her old body had grown wings as she hur ried up the slopes to the Bates cabin She could hardly stop long enough to bic kind or civil good-by to old Sue. Sht hurried off up old Sand with Lucia.
 It was sunset; that sudden falling O. darkness that comes on the mountains, { moment of roseate golden splendor, anc in another instant purple darkness every where save where the long mysterious lines of afterglow lie down the mountatr sides. In the purple dusk, out of sigh of any human habitation, the motheI grasped Luella's arm, made her face he in the path, and began with every ges ture of excitement to explain how she hat sent the letter and how the raiders wer, even now preparing to come up the mount ain.
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 Luella uttered one of those grea speechless cries SO awful to hear, fluns hef arms over her head and wept with vacancy of words for her grief that wa appalling. Ma Kato looked at her il alnazement, dumb as Luella's agony But Luella quickly recovered, and witl gestures more rapid and excited than he mosher's had been, she told story tha her mother might have known long ago.
 Xeb was one of the chief men who raj tFs Still Because of the potency of tn n.-4ne of Kato on the mountain and of it ass6ciation with the still in the old days and because the mountaineers had som superstition against starting up the still fearing old Kato's curse, Nick Scarlet hat given Feb half interest in the still to 2, into the distilling with him. Lucia hat found some little scrawled accounts ant some bits of money between the mattress es of Zeb's bed as she was fighting hi little lean-tO room in the cabin. It wa all losing business with Feb, however for he was losing character and caste ant all health of mind, body and soul, an, when there came a divide in the proceed of the still either Nick got the lion share or throw of the dice lost Feb al that Nick had allowed him.
 All this 'Stillery Lu showed quickl and excitedly to her mother. The moth CT followed her, fitting with each sig recollection of some instance not note at the time, but upon which she was sur now Luella's keen perception had put tn | right interpretation. There needed onl for the completion of Zeb's ruin that h | should be captured at his work in tn still and suffer a long imprisonment wit horde of criminals. This last his ow1 mother had brought to him. She Wal nearly palsied with terror, but Luell made rapid signs to her. There was m | time to lose! The men at the still mus be warned The two women with on accord sped toward the crown of the pur pie peaks. Already the raiders must b nearer the still than they, but the wa that the heavily-armed posse must talk was more circuitous than the paths an, cut-offs these women hastaDad +o Ira varao