CSI: Possum Hollow

On a warm spring night in the Appalachian highlands, a slight breeze ruffled the sugar maples as scudding clouds played across the silver face of the moon. Two figures transited a clearing, fetching up against a wooded copse of smaller trees and underbrush. The sweet reverie of the evening was thus broken:

"Consarn it, Luke! I tol' ya that thicket weren't no place fer th' still! Cain't hardly see nuthin'!"

"Well, dagnabbit, Bobby Lee, it ain't supposed to be out in plain sight, ya ninny," replied his companion, hands on hips in irritation. "Git the durned flashlight!"

"Well, shoot, yuh don't have to get all miffy," Bobby Lee muttered as he pawed through his rucksack for the forgotten flashlight, accompanied by peevish snorts and whatnot from Luke. The torch was retrieved. A click; a curse; a rattle; a click: light. The light swung toward the trees, the beam illuminating...trees.

After a moment of stunned silence, Bobby Lee gawped, "Shoot! Luke, whar's thet still? Weren't it right thar in them trees? We come up th' wrong hill, d'ye reckon?"

"Dang, Bobby Lee, yuh mortal igno-ramus, cain't you see thet still done been stole?" Luke snapped with a total lack of irony. He indicated a shiny coil of wire lying in a portion of the copse that appeared to have been recently trodden. "Must be them durn Hilliards from over the holler."

"Well, shoot, Luke, whatcha think it's the Hilliards fer? You know them no-account Balls been talkin' trash ever since they ol' coonhound fetched up and died," Bobby Lee offered. "I ain't never pisened no dawg," he finished, in an unconvincing mumble.

"Well, we cain't get nuthin' done standin' here jawin' about it," Luke pointed out. "Let's see if there ain't tar tracks er somethin' we can foller."

So the two sleuths tramped about the area, and before long, Bobby Lee espied some tar-er, tire, imprints, which caused our heroes much excitement.
"Luke! Git on over here, now! I found 'em! Them's the tar prints o' them what stole the still! Ah kin tell 'cause they's deeper in the dirt then our tar marks, accountin' fer the extra weight o' the still in the back o' they truck," Bobby Lee concluded, feeling mighty smart.