Earl, Timmy and John had spent the spare time they had hunting and had gotten a record 30 rabbits! While Timmy was helping his dad to do the run of moonshine, John was skinning and dressing out the rabbits. He put a rabbit stew on to cook with wild onions and some carrots they had brought. Oh, it smelled good! While that was cooking, John started the arduous task of curing the rabbit skins. While he was stretching the skins, he thought of his little sisters and how happy they would be to have the beautiful coats! John smiled and put his shoulders to the task. They was all stretched out that evening under the lean-to. John thought to himself, “My it’s gettin a mite crowded under here!” as he smiled proudly.

  Earl and Timmy finished up the last run about 3:00 in the morning. They transferred the liquor to mason jars and carried them down to the car and loaded it all up. Earl said, “I am hungry enough to eat that whole bear we killed! It sure smells good, John. What do you have fur us tonight?”

  John said, “A delicious rabbit stew!”

  He dished the stew out to Timmy and his dad and gave them each a wedge of cornbread. They were so hungry and finished the bowl of stew before you could blink an eye! John was ready and grabbed their bowls and refilled them. After rinsing the bowls in the stream and drying them, the three guys hit the sack.

  Before bed that night, Steve was loudly complaining about how he couldn’t rest well because of his wounds hurting all night long and then waking him up when he did get to sleep. “Lucy, you call yourself a doctor, but I’m in all of this pain! What kind of a doctor lets his patients hurt like this?”

  Lucy, having had about all she could handle from this ungrateful man, set her mason jar of moonshine that she used to treat his wounds down beside him and stomped out of the room.

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  Steve stopped his complaining to pick up the jar, got a small smile on his face that slowly spread, took off the lid of the jar and turned it up. He choked and choked and after calming down, changed his tactics and sipped the moonshine. In fact, he sipped the moonshine until there was none left. He slipped from a sitting position slowly down the pillow and fell into a blissful sleep!

  The next morning, Carl was coming out of the barn after feeding the animals, when he heard a car pulling onto the gravel of their driveway. At first he thought it might be his pa returning, but when he heard, “Freeze and put your hands on your head!” he realized he was wrong!

  “Be quiet and lay on the ground,” the local officer, Fred Wilson said, throwing his authority around and putting his boot on Carl’s back!

  Carl was running through things in his head, wondering what he could have done to bring the police down on him. He had kissed his girl, Molly Jones right on the mouth behind the church last Sunday. No that couldn’t be it. Her old man would have come after Carl himself if he didn’t like it. Besides he was hopin to get Molly married off, so he would have been glad things were movin along! Well, he had found Frank Hardie’s fiddle under his wagon seat, after he had given Frank a ride home and Frank had forgotten to take it with him. But Frank would know Carl would return his fiddle and he wouldn’t have sent the police.

  About that time, the federal agent, Bert Wintergreen, started looking everywhere, shining his flashlight in the hen house, the outhouse, in the barn and in the springhouse. “I don’t see nobody, let’s check the house. By this time, the sun wasn’t up, but everyone, except Steve, was awake and getting things ready for the day. The local officer kept his boot on Carl’s back, all authoritative like and Bert went to the front door. Lucy answered and took in the situation at a glance by candle light.

  “Hello officer, can I help you?”Lucy asked.

  “We are missing a federal agent and were told he might be here. His name is Steve Cordoba. Have you seen him?” Bert asked.