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Village Squire, 1980-02, Page 16That night at supper, I mentioned the strangers rather casually. "Oh." my father said, "you must mean those surveyor fellows. Swanson seems to think he's gonna strike it rich with some natural gas wells on that worthless farm. For the next few days, Rafer and I hung out around the bush on Swanson's farm. Rafer said it was a spy mission. On the first two days, we didn't see a thing that was worth spyin' on. Then on the third day, we struck paydirt. As we were sneaking up through one of the hayfields on our stomachs, Rafer grabbed my arm excitedly. "Look Davy, there's those two men again, up around the barn." Sure enough he was right. Swanson's big farm wagon was backed up to the barn door and the two men were busy unloading something. The pile'of manure kept us from seeing exactly what it was, but by the way the men were moving, it wasn't bags of grain. "1 said there was something suspicious about those two, Davy. We're going to start and keep a closer eye on them and old man Swanson." The though of another run-in with Swanson wasn't something I looked forward to. "Maybe it's just their surveying equipment they're unloading Refer." I didn't really believe this, but the explanation would keep us out of trouble. But you never discouraged Rafer that easily. "Have you ever seen them surveying Davy?" "No." "Well, 1 don't think either of those men is looking for gas. Anyway, the only kind they'd find around here is swamp gas. The next few days we hung out in the fields and watched as the men continued to unload their equipment into the barn. One day, just after we'd made it back out onto the road, we met Swanson and his team. He stopped the horses and called over. "Well, you two boys still practising your naturalist tricks?" Rafer looked straight ahead, but my manners got the better of me. "No sir." "Well, the next time I've got a Toad of manure to shovel, I'll give you two a holler." He clucked to the team and we could hear him chuckling to himself. It was after this encounter that Rafer decided we had to speed up our plan and see what was in that barn. If we couldn't get near it in the daytime, then it was obvious, we had to sneak back after dark. Two nights later we met at midnight on the road in front of our farm. Now Rafer hadn't any problem in sneaking out since his bedroom window was just above the roof of their woodshed. 1 wasn't so lucky. My only escape had been to crawl down the rose arbour that went up the side of the house. Just before I got to the bottom, the last rungs snapped and I fell smack into the middle of one of the prize rose bushes. If our expedition didn't find something pretty spectacular, 1 knew there'd be trouble with my mother. The moon 'that night was brighter than usual and we nad no trouble getting to the Swanson place. The house was in darkness. As we snuck up by the barn, Rafer stopped me. "Do you smell something funny?" "No, I don't think so, just manure." "No, there's something else. A yeasty smell." I didn't smell anything out of the ordinary, but then Rafer had always had a keener sense of smell. He must of had better eyesight, too, since it was Rafer that spotted the rope hanging down on the outside from the hayloft. When we got up into the ioft, it was obvious that the men hadn't been moving in surveying equipment. Sure enough, there was a pungent odour hanging in the air, right above a huge tank PG. 14 VILLAGE SOUIREIFEBRUARY 1980 that was bubbling softly. Pipes were running everywhere, and the moonlight made them glow strangely in the dark. Rafer put his fingers to his lips and we crawled close to the edge of the hayloft. The two men were sleeping on cots down below, right beside their giant still. The way I knew it was a still was because my mother's Christian Temperance literature had been overzealous in picturing what the evil contraptions looked like. After our quick survey. we didn't waste much time getting back out of that barn. Neither of us said anything until we were a good ways away from the Swanson place. Then Rafer let out a shrill whistle. "Did you see that,Davy? There must be hundreds of gallons in that tank back there. We're really onto something now." "What should we do?" "Well, we could blackmail Swanson, but I thing it'd be safer to call in the law." 1 quickly voted for the law idea. "We can go into town tomorrow and tell Constable James." Rafer laughed. "Constable James. That fool couldn't handle something as big as this. This isn't a little crime, why those men are probably from an organized gang." Ordinarily, I would have argued with Rafer. Constable James was a second cousin on my mother's side. and I had always looked up to him. But there was truth in the fact that this certainly wasn't just any crime. "We have to notify the Mounties. Remember what the minister said about Prohibition last week. This is a federal crime. The next morning it took some persuading to get Miss Lucas to put a long distance call through to the Mounties. We had picked her since she was president of the Womens' Christian Temperance Union. Also, she had a strong dislike for Mr. Swanson. Mind you. she hadn't forgiven us for the cat, not by a long shot, but this time she figured if we were lying, then the police would arrest us instead of Swanson. She couldn't really lose! That afternoon, three loads of police descended on the Swanson place. They took the barn without any incidents. except for one rookie who shot himself in the foot by accident and an officer who stumbled into the pile of manure. Inside the barn, they found a still and a giant still at that. There were six large vats. a huge boiler and pipes leading from the well outside to one of the big tanks. They figures there was almost thirty thousand dollars worth of equipment sitting in Swanson's barn. Strangely enough, the men hadn't quite perfected their tool and the Mounties found only five gallons of whiskey. Rafer made certain we were right there, when they loaded Swanson into one of the police cars. For once, the farmer was speechless. Even Rafer didn't have the heart to make any sarcastic comments. Needless to say, we were heroes. Miss Lucas baked a big cake for us, our parents kept telling us how proud they were, and every kid in the neighbourhood had to hear the story at least ten times. The Mounties even sent down an officer in dress uniform to present us with a citation and five dollars reward apiece. Rafer wasn't surprised, he said he'd expected it all along. My five dollars, and the same sum from my parents, went towards a new bicycle I'd been eying in the town hardware for a long time. Rafer wouldn't tell me right off what he was going to spend his money on. He spent a lot of time at the library though and then I didn't see him for a few days. Finally 1 located him out in the woods, not far from Skunk's Misery. He had built a lean-to and was busy inside. Even over the smell of the swamp, I caught the whiff of something else. I knew how Rafer had spent his money. "The way I figure it Davy, you should start out on a small scale first. Like Mr. Seton said in his book, there's nothing you can't work out if you try. Rafer was just one of those people cut out to be a success in life!