The same distinguished writer who gave you such thrilling stories of far places as “The Brazen Peacock” and “Lou-Lou” knows the odd corners of his own country too—as witness this exciting story of adventure among the untamed Beaver Islanders.
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the March 1924 issue of Blue Book Magazine.]
Nelly Callahan was the only one to see just what happened. Everyone else in camp had gone down the island that day to get a count of the half-wild cattle among the blueberry swamps.
The wild drive of rain and low clouds to the westward hid Garden Island from sight and lowered all the horizon, until Lake Michigan seemed a small place. Beaver Island was clear vanished, and so was High Island with its colony of Israelites. Nothing was to be seen from this north end of Hog Island except the foaming shallows and the deeper water beyond, and the huge rollers bursting in from the Wisconsin shore—with two other things. One, as the keen blue eyes of the watching girl could make out, was or had been a boat; the other was a man.
She had heard shots, faint reports cracking down the wind, drawing her to the point of land to see what was happening out there toward Garden Island. For a long while there was nothing to see, until the boat came into sight. It was only a blotch, rising and then gone again, gradually sinking from sight altogether. Few would have seen it. Nelly Callahan, however, was an island girl, and her eye was instantly caught by anything outside the settled scheme of things. So she knew it for a boat, and after a time knew that it had gone down entirely.
Presently she made out the man. To her intense astonishment he was sitting in the stern of a canoe, and paddling. Canoes are rare things in the Beaver Islands these days; here in the center of Lake Michigan, with the nearest land little more than a mirage above the horizon, there are other and safer playthings, and life is too bitter hard to be lightly held.
Yet here was a canoe driving down the storm, a rag of sail on a stumpy mast forward, tarpaulins lashed over freight-rolls amidships, the man paddling in the stern. What connection was there between him and that sunken boat, and those shots behind the curtain of rain and mist?
That he was trying to get in under the curving line of exposed ledge and shoal that ran out from the point was obvious. If he missed, he would be carried on out to the open lake, for once around the point his chances of getting to land were slim. Nelly Callahan watched him admiringly as he fought, gaining inch by inch, now leaning hard on his paddle, now stroking desperately as the gusty wind threw off the canoe’s head. The odds were worse than he could realize, too; all along the point there were shoals, running only two to three feet of water, and his canoe evidently carried a centerboard.
Suddenly she saw the paddle snap in his hands. The canoe swayed wildly over, swayed back again, rose on a sweeping foam-crest and was flung forward. Another instant, and she would have been rolled over, but the man snatched out another paddle and dug it in. Again the stubborn, straining fight, but he had lost ground, and the current was setting out around the point of land.
Still, he had a good chance to win. He was closer, now; Nelly Callahan could see that his shirt was torn to ribbons, that his mouth was bleeding; and those things did not come from wind and rain alone. The canoe was a wide lake-cruiser, safe enough in any sea except for her heavy load—but this rock-studded shore water was safe for no craft. All the wide expanse around the Beavers is treacherous with rocks barely awash.
An invisible hand seemed to strike the man suddenly, knocking him forward on his face. The canoe staggered, lay over on one side—she had struck bottom. Frantically the man recovered, jerked up the centerboard, threw in the pin. But he was too late; he had lost the game. The bow, with its scrap of sail, bore off before the sweep of wind, and like an arrow the canoe darted out around the point and was gone.
For a moment Nelly Callahan stood motionless at the edge of the trees. Then she turned and started to cut across the base of the long point, to get a view of the north shore beyond. There was no trail, however. Nobody lived on Hog Island; the brush was heavy and almost impenetrable. Excited, breathless, the girl struggled on her way, but knew that she was too slow. However, she kept on. Presently she burst through the final barrier, her feet slipping and sliding on the ground-pine that trailed across the sand, and came out on the northern stretch of shore. Nothing was in sight.
For a little while she stood there, dismayed, agonized, incredulous. She had been a long while getting here, of course; yet some sign of man or canoe, even had the latter capsized, must have been within sight. Here around the point the force of the rollers was lessened, too. Yet everything was empty. Man and canoe had vanished.
A shout roused the girl. She glanced over her shoulder, fear flitting into her blue eyes; then she turned and retraced her steps.
When she stepped back into the clearing of the camp, the others had returned. She shrank within herself slightly, as always, as her eyes swept them; for though Nelly was a Beaver girl, she was also something more. Her mother had come from the mainland, and there was none of the closely interbred strain in Nelly Callahan.
“Where ye been?” called Matt Big Mary, her father, combing out his tangle of black beard with knotted fingers. “Get the coffee on, girl! It’s needin’ it we are, the day.”
It was something of a tribute to Matt Callahan that he was not known by the usual island diminutive, though the peculiar system of nomenclature obtained to distinguish him from his cousin Matty Basset Callahan. He was a giant of a man, massive as an oak, in his deep eyes a brooding, glooming shadow that had lain there since his wife died.
The others were merry enough, however, for Hughie Dunlevy had fallen into the swamp and mired himself head over ears; small wonder that Jimmy Basset and Willy Tom Gallagher made sport at that, since Hughie Dunlevy was a great man on the island, holding a second mate’s ticket, and strong as any two men except Matt Big Mary. He was fishing this summer, going partners with Matt, and had bought a half-interest in the Callahan cattle that ran here on Hog Island. Men said in St. James that he would make a good son-in-law to Matt, for it is always the wildest who settle down the best, and if he would but leave Jimmy Basset’s moonshine liquor alone, he had a great future fronting him.
Here for a week they were, pulling the long stakes that had held pound-nets all the spring out at the edge of deep water where the great trout and whitefish ran, and working the north island shore with trap-nets and bloater lines. Here for a week were the four men, with Nelly Callahan to cook and mind camp. She and her father occupied the old shanty at the edge of the clearing; the other three slept in the brown tent near by.
Now, any other Beaver girl would have at once drawn general attention to the sunken boat, which would wash in and make salvage, and to the presumably drowned man and his canoe. But Nelly Callahan kept quiet. She had become a changed girl since getting home from her school-teaching this spring, and finding that her father had made a match with Hughie Dunlevy for her; much had happened; sorrowful things had transpired; and Nelly Callahan was biding her time.
Half an hour passed by, and the noon meal was over; and since the weather was too bad for work, there was naught to be done but sit and smoke. Then Matt Big Mary took Jimmy Basset and Willy Tom Gallagher with him, and a trap-net from the big launch dragged up under the trees, and set off down the shore. He gave Hughie Dunlevy a significant wink.
“We’ll take the skiff down to Belmore Bay,” said he, “and be setting a trap out beyond the old wreck, and maybe pick up a fifty-dollar box o’ bass come Saturday. Hughie, me lad, keep your eye on the camp.”
“Aye,” said big Hughie, grinning all over his broad, good-natured face; and they filed off down the shore on their two-mile tramp to Belmore Bay. Nelly was keenly aware of the strategy, but made no comment. She was afraid of Hughie, as well she might be. A fine, strapping lad he was except when he was crossed, and good-humored while he had his own way and there was no liquor in him; yet he was one to be afraid of.
“There’s more cattle down the island than we looked for, Nelly,” said he, chewing at a cigar and watching the girl as she cleaned up. “The buyer will be over from East Jordan next week, and then there’ll be doings. What’s more, there’s some big pine in yonder that’s never been cut out. I’m thinkin’ of raftin’ it over to the mill.”
“Good idea, if you owned it,” said a strange voice. “But you don’t.”
Hughie Dunlevy turned, stared, came to his feet with a leap. There at the edge of the trees, his approach unheard, stood the man whom Nelly Callahan had seen in the canoe. He wore nothing but his ragged shirt, the most essential half of a pair of overalls, and canvas shoes. Short, curly red hair crowned a face that was weather-hardened, humorous, strongboned; one glimpsed sparkling gray eyes that could either laugh or glitter, and a wide, generous mouth. Dripping wet as he was, the stranger showed bruises and a cut lip, and a red streak ran across his half-exposed chest.
“If you could spare me a bite to eat, young lady, I’d appreciate it!” exclaimed the stranger genially. “Did I scare you folks? Sorry! My boat went down, and I was washed ashore, saw the smoke of your fire, and came for it. Is that a fish mulligan I smell? Then if there’s any left, have pity on a starving man!”
Nelly, with a smile at his laughing words, turned to the big pot. Hughie Dunlevy regarded the stranger with a frown on his wide features.
“Where’d ye come from? Who are ye?”
“Callahan’s my name,” said the stranger, coming forward.
“You’re no island Callahan!” said Dunlevy promptly. The other laughed.
“No, I haven’t that honor; but our ancestors were kings in Ireland at the same time. I don’t go by that name either; mostly folks call me Hardrock.”
“Hardrock Callahan, eh?” exclaimed the girl, not liking the general aspect of Hughie Dunlevy. “Well, I’m Nelly Callahan, and this is my father’s camp, and you’re welcome. Shake hands with Hughie Dunlevy and make yourself comfortable. I’ll have this mulligan hot in a minute, and coffee’s all ready.”
Hardrock stepped forward and extended his hand. Dunlevy accepted it, though not with any marked warmth, and for an instant the two men measured each other.
“What was that you said when you showed up?” demanded Hughie. “About me not owning this timber?”
“Something like that, I guess.” Hardrock Callahan laughed cheerfully. “I happen to own it myself. Oh, coffee ready? Thanks, Miss Callahan—or if I may say so, Miss Nelly! I hate to use the name of Callahan on the Beavers—too many other Callahans here already.”
He sat down, turned his back to the scowling, indeterminate Hughie, and sipped the hot coffee. Nelly Callahan did not smile, however, as she put the mulligan pot in the embers. It had come to her that while she was crossing the point, this man must have worked his canoe in to the shore, have dragged it up, and have made camp. And what was this story of owning the timber?
“You and me will have a talk,” said Hughie Dunlevy, “when you’ve had a bite to eat.”
“Right,” said Hardrock Callahan. “I’ve had one or two talks already this morning.”
The girl looked at him, met his twinkling gray eyes, and smiled despite herself.
Nelly Callahan saw that this man Hardrock was a stranger; and yet he was not a stranger. No one but a fool would have walked ashore on the Beavers and claimed ownership of land, unless he was known and accepted; for little good his law title would do him. Hardrock was certainly not a fool, however; and at the same time he had some knowledge of the islands. He had hidden his canoe and the stuff in it; and it was significant that Nelly did not look upon the story he told as a lie, but as justifiable precaution. Was it his motorboat that she had seen sinking?
“And did ye say,” inquired Hughie, recalling the boat, “that your boat had gone down?”
“Motorboat,” and Hardrock nodded in affirmation. “Hit a sunken rock out yonder and raked her bottom out.”
“Where from?”
“St. James.”
Hughie scowled at that, as well he might, since no one but an islander was from St. James; and this man was no islander. Set in the middle of Lake Michigan, inhabited by a hundred and fifty families, each related to the others, living by the loot of the lakes and woods, the islanders were a clannish lot who clung together and let the world go by. A few Indians lingered; a few outsiders had roamed in; a few tourists came and went; and over on High Island was the colony of Israelites—silent, wistful men with wide eyes and hairy lips. No law was on the Beavers, nor ever had been, save when King Strang established his brief Mormon kingdom at St. James. There was not an officer in the group, not a judge nor a lawyer nor a doctor, and one man was as good as another; and once when the revenue men came to pry around, with talk of the Eighteenth Amendment, there were dark tales of what happened by night—but no more revenue men came. As for game wardens they were not fools.
The Beavers were not out of touch with the world, however. Scarce a large boat on the western lakes but had from one to ten islanders aboard, and the Beaver Gallaghers were known from Buffalo to Duluth; how many island men lay at the bottom of Whitefish Bay, it was hard to say. Some, who made money, spent the winters in Chicago or elsewhere; and Bowery Callahan, who swung the island vote, was State road-inspector and traveled up and down the land enjoying his ease.
Nelly looked at the two men by the fire, and felt a sudden hurt in the heart of her for the smiling stranger. He had no fear in his eye, and under his brown throat his skin was white like ivory, and his arms under their tattered sleeves were smooth as silk. At him as he ate glared Hughie Dunlevy, broad and dark like all the Dunlevys, rippling with great muscles, a man with strength to toss a box of fish like a toy; and many a tale was told of Hughie on the lake boats, and how he put the boots to any man who dared stand up to him.
Now Hardrock sighed, and smiled at Nelly, and thanked her for his meal.
“We’ll have our talk,” said he to Hughie, “and then I’ll have a smoke.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” said Hughie. “What are ye doing here?”
“Resting on my own land, if you want to know. I bought this end of the island from Eddie John Macaulay in Charlevoix.”
There was no parry between the two of them, no hesitation. Hardrock looked Hughie in the eye and gave him the news straight and direct.
“Buying isn’t keeping,” said Hughie. “We’ll have a word about that matter. Eddie John told us to take the timber if we wanted it, and take it we will.”
The gray eyes of Hardrock glittered for a moment.
“Take it you wont,” said he bluntly.
Hughie laughed, and it was a laugh to reach under the skin and sting.
“Is that so, Mr. Callahan? It’s sorry I’d be to hurt ye, and you washed ashore and out of luck; so keep a civil tongue in your head. Have no such talk around Matt Big Mary, I warn ye, for this is his camp and mine, and he’s a bad man in his anger.”
Hardrock’s thin lips twitched. “So they said about Connie Dunlevy this morning in St. James. I hope he’s not related to you? He came out on the dock to have a talk with me, and I think they’re taking him over on the mailboat this afternoon to the hospital.”
Hughie scrambled to his feet. “Glory be! What have ye done to my brother Connie, ye red-haired outlander?”
“Not a thing,” said Hardrock, and chuckled. “Poor Connie fell off the dock. I think he broke a rib or two, and maybe his shoulder.”
“Get up!” cried Hughie hoarsely, passion flaming in his face. “So that’s who marked ye up, eh? Then I’ll finish the job—”
Hardrock stretched himself and began to rise, lazily enough. Just then Nelly Callahan stepped forward.
“Don’t, Hughie!” she exclaimed. “It isn’t fair—you mustn’t! He’s all worn out—”
Hughie turned on her and shoved her aside. “Out o’ this! Stand aside, and see—”
He never finished the sentence, for Hardrock was off the ground like a spring of steel, a billet of firewood in one hand, and the sound of the blow could be heard across the clearing. Struck behind the ear Hughie Dunlevy threw out his arms and went down in a heap. Hardrock looked at Nelly Callahan, and the glitter of his eyes changed to a smile.
“So that’s that,” he said coolly. “Too bad I had to use the stick, Miss Nelly, but you spoke the truth when you said I was done up. Don’t worry about him—he’ll come around after a bit. Do you suppose you could find me a bit of dry tobacco? Then we’ll sit down and talk things over.”
For a moment the girl looked at him. She was blue of eye and black of hair, and the color was high in her cheeks; and when she smiled there came a dimple on either side of her mouth, and her body held a spring of the foot and a supple grace of round lines that the school-teaching had not taken out of her. Suddenly a laugh broke in her eyes.
“Hughie had it coming, I think,” said she, and turned. “I’ll get you the tobacco.”
She got him some, and sat down at the fire and watched him stuff it into his pipe and light it with an ember. Hughie Dunlevy lay where he had fallen.
“Father and the other boys will be back in an hour or sooner,” she said. “I think you’d better go and get that canoe of yours, and be off while you have the chance.”
Hardrock gave her a swift look, then chuckled.
“Oh! Saw me land, did you? No, I’m not going, thanks. I’m staying.”
“Then you’ll have trouble, I’m afraid.”
He shrugged, and lay back on one elbow, smoking contentedly.
“Very likely. Eddie John Macaulay thought he worked a smooth trick when he sold me this end of the island, timber and all, but I’d been warned beforehand. I spent the night at St. James and went up to the dance and had a grand time. Connie Dunlevy had too much moonshine, though, and this morning he started to make trouble.”
“Listen, please!” said the girl, an urgent note in her voice. “You can’t take this seriously—but you must! You don’t understand. You’ll not be allowed to stay, after all that’s happened. Who was shooting out in the channel? What boat was that I saw sinking?”
Hardrock took the pipe from his lips and regarded her for a moment.
“My dear Nelly,” he said quietly, “I’m afraid you’re the one who doesn’t understand. Did you ever hear of Danny Gallagher?”
Her eyes opened at that. “Danny? Why of course! His father Vesty owns the sawmill down at the head of the island. But Danny has been away two years, in Arizona.”
“And I’ve come from Arizona,” said Hardrock. “That’s where I got my nickname. I’ve been running a mine out there, and Danny has been working with me. He’s a fine boy, Danny is! He told me so much about the islands that I came up here when I got a year off, and I’m going to settle down in a cabin here under the trees, and finish writing a mining book for engineers. Danny has written his father about me. I meant to look up Vesty, but haven’t had a chance yet.”
The troubled comprehension in the blue eyes of the girl deepened at this.
“Why didn’t you do it first?” she broke out. “If people knew that Danny had sent you here, and Vesty Gallagher would answer for you, there’d have been no trouble! Vesty is a big man on the island. A word from him—”
“My dear girl, I stand on my own feet,” said Hardrock quietly. “The sunken boat you saw was mine. Two of Connie’s friends got after me. I suppose they thought it was quite safe, for the rain was coming down in sheets and one could scarcely see three hundred yards. They ran me down before I knew what they were up to. Fortunately, I had time to cut the canoe loose and get into her, and then I opened up on the two rascals with my shotgun, and gave them plenty. Never fear! When I go over to St. James I’ll know ’em again, and take a little punishment out of them for the loss of that motorboat. Satisfied, are you?”
Under his twinkling gray eyes, the girl laughed a little.
“Hold it!” he exclaimed. “Oh, no use—gone again.”
“Eh?” Her gaze widened. “What?”
“Those dimples. How long is this camp to continue?”
“Until the first of the week.” Nelly Callahan was disconcerted by his abrupt change of subject and forgot to resent the personality. “Father’s rounding up some cattle and counting how many there are here.”
“Good! Then I’ll be over to the dance next Thursday night. May I take you?”
She was startled by his words. She was more startled a moment later when a crashing of brush sounded, and she leaped to her feet.
“Oh! Father’s coming—”
“Answer the question,” persisted Hardrock. “Quick!”
“Yes,” she said, and then turned swiftly to him. “Go quickly—”
“Nonsense!” Hardrock puffed at his pipe. “Nothing to get excited about. I’m not going to start any trouble, I promise you. Great Scott! Is that your father?”
He stared at the huge figure of Matt Big Mary advancing upon him, with the other two men following. All three gaped at him. Matt, astonished, came to a halt.
“What’s this!” he rumbled. “Hughie! Where’s Hughie, lass? Who’s yon man?”
“Hughie’s gone to sleep,” said Hardrock, and came easily to his feet. “My name’s Callahan—”
“He’s a friend of Danny Vesty Gallagher,” broke in the girl swiftly. “From Arizona. And Danny had him buy this end of the island from Eddie John Macaulay, Father.”
“Shipwrecked on my own land,” said Hardrock, laughing. He held out his hand. “You’re Matt Callahan—Matt Big Mary? Danny has told me about you. Glad to meet you.”
Matt gave him a huge grip, between surprise and bewilderment.
“What’s all this? Bought it off of Eddie John, ye did? And what d’ye mean by shipwrecked? There’s been no boat—”
“My motorboat went down,” said Hardrock. “I got ashore with my duffle, though. Got a camp down shore a piece. Came over from St. James this morning.”
“Oh! And it’s a friend o’ Vesty Gallagher ye are, eh? What’s the matter with Hughie?”
“Hughie made a mistake,” Hardrock grinned cheerfully. “He didn’t believe that I had bought this bit of the island. Somehow, Hughie and I didn’t get along very well. He had some queer idea that I ought to walk home, and I didn’t agree with him. So he went to sleep. I guess I’ll be going. Drop over to my camp sometime. I’ll likely run in and see you again. Thanks for the coffee, Miss Nelly.”
And he was gone, with a wave of his hand, before the three astonished men knew what to say or do.
Hardrock Callahan passed along the narrow sand-strip that edged the north shore of Hog Island, until he found a slight opening among the trees that suited him. Then he came back to his pulled-up canoe and began to transport his load to the spot selected; the canoe itself he left hidden where it was.
The storm was not clearing off, but was turning and bringing down a new and colder drift of rain and wind from the north. Ax in hand, Hardrock attacked the tangle of dead and living trees that rimmed him in like a wall. For an hour he worked steadily, slowly driving back the growth and clearing the grassy sward that had attracted him; then he dragged the debris to the shore and was rid of it. This done, he sat down in the wet sand, stuffed some of his own tobacco into his pipe, and sighed comfortably.
“What a girl!” he observed. “And she’s the same one Danny Gallagher showed me the picture of, too. That’s a coincidence. Well, I’d better get a shelter up before I settle down to dream about her. Good thing the motorboat went down instead of my canoe! She’s a grade above most of the islanders that I’ve seen—”
Whether he referred to canoe or girl was not determined.
He set to work methodically getting up the tent, which he now unlashed, and anchored it securely. His clearing opened on the shore to the north, and the trees fully protected him from the eternal west winds; since he was pitching the tent for all summer, he made a thorough job of it, and this took time. Then, opening up some of his bundles, he produced flannel shirt and corduroys and other garments, and clothed himself in decency. Having already collected some dry wood from the thicket, he now built up a cheerful blaze and watched the wispy smoke whirl away in gray shreds down the wind. The afternoon was waning, and he was considering opening up some grub when a huge figure came into his vista of the shore and Matt Big Mary was striding up to him.
“Greetings!” exclaimed Hardrock cordially. “Come in out of the rain and toast your shins.”
The big man nodded solemnly, sat down beside Hardrock in the tent opening, produced a black pipe and blacker tobacco, and lighted up. He sat for a little in silence, staring over the fire at the gray lake with those deep-set, melancholy eyes of his. At length he removed the pipe from his lips and spoke.
“Hughie tells me ye’ve bought the timber.”
“Yes. It went with the land, said Eddie John. I’ve no use for it, except this tall pine right back of here. If you want the rest, you can have it.”
“I don’t,” said Matt. “You’re none of the island Callahans?”
“No. New York State.”
“So are we, out of County Tyrone. All the same stock.” Matt puffed over that for a bit. “Ye done a bad day’s work, fallin’ foul of Hughie Dunlevy.”
“That’s as may be. Sooner him than you.”
Matt turned and swept Hardrock with his slow gaze. “Why?”
“Because,”—and Hardrock stretched himself out more comfortably,—“because I expect to marry your daughter.”
“I don’t like jokes,” said Matt Big Mary, after a moment. “Not that kind.”
“I’m not joking,” said Hardrock coolly. “Danny Gallagher showed me a picture of her, and that’s why I came here, partly. Now that I’ve seen her and talked with her, I know. I’m fair with you. If she’s in love with nobody else, and I can win her, I’ll do it.”
“Hot head, queer heart,” said Matt, a gathering rumble in his tone.
Hardrock laughed. “I’m safe enough.”
“She’s promised.”
“By herself or by you?”
“No matter. Hughie Dunlevy marries her.”
“No.”
Storm grew in Matt’s eyes, and his big black beard bristled.
“Careful, me lad! The boys wanted to come over and have a talk with ye, but I set down me foot. I want no trouble, without ye force it on me. I’ll have no man makin’ light talk of my girl, more particular a stranger.”
“It’s not light talk, Matt; I mean every word of it,” said Hardrock. “And I’m not a good one to bluff, either. You fellows on the Beavers, Matt, are all clannish, and you all stick together like burrs, and you throw a strong bluff. Why? Because you’re all afraid of the big world. Let a better man walk in and whip one or two of you, and things are different. Besides, I have a friend or so if I want to call on ’em, and I’ll be no outcast. So think twice, Matt, before you lay down the law.”
Even while he spoke, Hardrock felt his words fruitless. Matt’s mental horizon was too narrowed to comprehend him in the least.
“You take my advice,” said Matt Big Mary after a moment. “Be out of here before tomorry night, me lad. Ye’ll find a skiff on the shore down to the bay—”
“Want me to put you off my land, Matt?” said Hardrock quietly.
The other was so astonished that he turned his head and stared. What he saw in those hard, icy gray eyes held him silent. Hardrock continued:
“You seem to think, Matt, that I’m a boy to obey you. I’m not. I don’t intend to put up a ‘No Trespass’ sign and keep folks off, but I’m not taking orders from you, and I’m not scared worth a damn. If you bring a fight to me, I’ll meet you halfway every time. I’ve tried to be decent with you, because I want no trouble. Now, I have to be in St. James tomorrow morning, and I’ll expect you to see that my camp here isn’t disturbed while I’m gone; you’re square enough to keep your men away from it. Think things over. When I come back, I’ll see you. If you’ve made up your mind to avoid trouble and meet me halfway, I’ll be glad. If not, we’ll settle things in a hurry. What d’you say to that?”
Matt Big Mary laughed slowly.
“Aye,” said he. “That’s fair, Hardrock. But you’ll not come back from the island, if what Hughie did be tellin’ us is so. Connie Dunlevy will be waitin’ for you, or his friends.”
“So will Vesty Gallagher.” Hardrock grinned cheerfully. “I’ll be back tomorrow night or next day. Anything you want me to fetch with me—mail or grub?” Matt stared at him a moment, then rose to his feet.
“Damned if I can make ye out,” said he reflectively. “So long. I’ll answer that the boys don’t touch your camp.”
He strode away and vanished along the shore.
When daylight died, the storm was blown out and the rollers were already going down. Hardrock Callahan, after luxuriously dining on beans and biscuit and hot tea, smoked his pipe and watched the stars, then laid out his blankets and rolled up. He was asleep almost at once.
It was two in the morning when he wakened, as he had set himself to do. A glance at his watch confirmed the hour. He dressed, and went down to the shore. Everything was quiet, save for the wash of waves and the whisper of breeze in the trees overhead. Off to the northwest came the swift, clear flash of the Garden Shoal light, and farther west, the red flash from Squaw Island light glimmered over the horizon. Nodding, Hardrock returned to his tent, produced an electric torch and for ten minutes pored over an unrolled chart of the island group.
Then, satisfied, he laced up the tentflap, turned to the shore, and went to where the wide lake-cruising canoe was laid up under the bushes. In ten minutes the light craft was standing out under the breeze, rounding the point and holding south for Beaver Island and St. James.
The dawn was breaking when he drew down toward the long and narrow harbor. Instead of holding for it, however, he went to the right of the unwinking red eye of the lighthouse, came to shore on the point amid the thick trees and half-ruined dwellings there, and drew up the canoe from sight. Hardrock Callahan was learning caution. He set out afoot, and presently came to the road that wound along the bay and was the artery of the straggling row of houses circling the bay-shore for a mile or more and forming the town of St. James.
The sun was rising upon a glorious day when he had passed down the length of the bay to the head, and reached the hotel and the restaurant adjoining. The hotel was not yet alive for the day, but the island itself was astir, and the restaurant was open. Hardrock went in and breakfasted leisurely by the help of Rose McCafferty, who was waitress, cook and proprietor. Finding himself taken for an early tourist from the hotel out for the morning’s fishing, he let it go at that.
“Hear any more about the boys who were shot up?” he inquired casually, in the course of the meal. The response stupefied him.
“Glory be, and what more is there to hear, except the name o’ the scoundrel that done it? Poor Marty Biddy Basset—a grand boy he was, and only yesterday morning he was settin’ here before me! And Owen John will maybe get well, but the fever’s on him and it’s no talkin’ he’ll do this long while. The doctor at the hotel is wid him this blessed minute.”
“Eh?” Hardrock stared at her. “One of them’s dead, you say? I didn’t know that—”
“Wasn’t they picked up by the Danes and brought in last night, and poor Marty wid a bullet through him, and two through Owen, and the both of ’em all peppered wid birdshot as well, and the boat ruined wid bullets? There she lays down to the Booth dock this minute—”
Hardrock laid a coin on the counter and went out.
He stood staring down at the line of fish-sheds and wharves across the road, feeling numb and unable to believe what he had heard. Dead! Yet he had certainly used no bullets; he had neither rifle nor pistol. Mechanically he crossed the road and walked through the soft, deep sand to the fish-company’s wharf. Red-haired Joe Boyle had just opened up the shed and was getting in some box-parts to knock together; he flung Hardrock a casual nod as the latter approached, and went on about his business.
The boat was not far to seek. She lay on the north side of the dock, and Hardrock stood gazing down at her. That she was the same which had run him down, he saw at a glance; not many of these boats were open craft; nearly all having a boxlike shelter for engines and lifters and men.
Across her weathered stern-sheets was a pool of dried, blackened blood, and the thwart by the engine carried another grim reminder. Fear clamped upon Hardrock—fear lest he be blamed for this affair. It seemed only too probable. Whoever had done the murder, too, must have done it shortly after he himself had peppered the two men with his shotgun. The swift impulse seized on him to run while he could.
Instead of running, however, he leaned over and jumped down into the boat. Up forward was a tangle of ropes and lines and life-belts, and a colored object there caught his notice. He picked it up. It was a small pennant-shaped bit of canvas, painted half white, half black, attached to a stick that had broken short off. Moved by some instinct, certainly by no obvious reason, he pocketed it and climbed back to the wharf.
“Morning,” said a voice, and he looked up to see a gnarled, red-whiskered man surveying him with an air of appraisal. “Your name aint Callahan, by any chance?”
“Callahan it is. Otherwise, Hardrock.”
“Good. I been lookin’ for ye,” said the other. “I’m Vesty Gallagher, Danny’s dad. Let’s you and me go somewheres, and go quick. Come on over to Dunlevy’s shed. Good thing I seen ye, Hardrock—blamed good thing! Come on.”
In the heavy, dank quiet of the shed where the big nets hung, Hardrock sat smoking his pipe. His brain listened mechanically to the words of Vesty Gallagher; yet other sounds were borne in upon him; the rattle of ice from the wharf, the slam of fish-boxes tossed about, the eternal creaking of the great net-frames as they swung and swung endlessly in the breeze and groaned futile protest.
“By luck I come to town last night for freight, and remained over,” said Vesty, “and by luck I seen you this morning and knew ye for a stranger. I said a word or two last night, when there was talk about your scrap wi’ Connie Dunlevy, after the two boys was brought in. Some said you had done it, d’ye see? Nobody knows what’s happened out there in the fog and rain, but there’s plenty that intend to know. Eleven families o’ Bassets there are on the island, and Marty Biddy dead today. Not to mention Owen John, wi’ two bullets through him and the fever bad on him, and he’ll go over to the Charlevoix hospital on the mailboat. By luck my boy Danny had been writin’ me, and I was looking for ye.”
Hardrock nodded and turned to the gnarled man beside him.
“It was more than luck that I met you this morning,” he said quietly. “You don’t know just how bad things look for me. Here’s what happened.”
He told what had taken place the preceding day, omitting no detail. “They were not close enough for the shotgun to do much damage,” he concluded. “Where those bullets came from, I can’t pretend to guess.”
Vesty Gallagher bit his pipestem thoughtfully, watching Hardrock from screwed-up, sharp little eyes.
“You’re straight,” he said suddenly. “I’m with ye. So that’s settled. Now hark ye here, me lad! I’ll have a word wi’ the priest, and he’ll have a word wi’ the boys, and they’ll go slow. But if I was you, I’d come down to the sawmill with me and spend a while there.”
Hardrock smiled. “Thanks, Vesty, but I can’t do it. Surely there must be some way of telling who shot those two fellows?”
“There’s many would ha’ liked to do it,” said old Gallagher. “The two of them was a bad lot—them and the Dunlevy boys hung together. Ye’ll have trouble there. Connie Dunlevy and Hughie will guess that ye had a hand in the shootin’, and they’ll go for ye. Better ye come down home with me, lad.”
“Can’t. Promised Matt Callahan I’d come back to Hog Island and settle matters with him.” The gray eyes of Hardrock twinkled. “I said I’d put him off my land if he wasn’t reasonable, and I’ll do it.”
“Glory be! Have ye been fighting with Matt Big Mary? And I hear Hughie’s over there—”
Hardrock related a version of his encounter on the island—a version which very tactfully omitted any mention of Nelly Callahan. Old Vesty chuckled and scratched his red whiskers and then chuckled again.
“Praise be, it’s fine to hear of some one who’s got the guts to stand up to them Callahans!” he exclaimed. “Betwixt ’em, the Callahans and Dunlevys have been runnin’ too high a hand and drinkin’ too much o’ Jimmy Basset’s moonshine. What came ye to town for?”
“To find who it was had run me down, and make ’em pay for my motorboat,” said Hardrock. “But now I’ll reconsider the program. It wont do to have everybody know what happened, or I’d be—”
“You’d be shot so damned quick ye’d never know what struck!” said Vesty promptly. “Word’s been passed around that you’re a revenuer, but I’ve put a stop to that. If Owen John does any talkin’ before they take him to Charlevoix, he’ll be able to tell what happened, but they say he’s bad off.”
“I suppose the sheriff will be over to investigate?”
Vesty sucked at his pipe a moment. “Maybe,” he said slowly. “And maybe not. Depends on what story’s told. This here is Beaver Island, me lad. Them fellys has had scraps with everybody—Injuns, Danes, Israelites and Washinton Island men. Last week they had a scrap with some fellys from Cheboygan that was robbin’ some nets. A wild bunch, them Cheboygan lads, fishin’ on other folks’ ground and runnin’ whisky in from Canady. What’ll ye do now?”
“Go back to Hog Island,” said Hardrock.
“Do it, and if ye have any regard for health, keep the peace with Matt Big Mary! I’ll walk up the shore with ye—left your canoe on the north point, ye said? It’ll do ye no harm to be seen walkin’ with me.”
They left the shed and swung up to the road, and there Vesty hailed a man and halted Hardrock to meet him.
“It’s Tom Boyle Gallagher, me own cousin, and his boys run the freight-boat and he runs the store yonder. Hey, Tom! Shake hands with Hardrock Callahan. He’s the felly who had the scrap with Connie Dunlevy yesterday mornin’. It’s a friend of Danny’s he is, and a friend of mine, and he’s bought some land on Hog Island from Eddie John Macaulay.”
Tom Gallagher grinned as he met Hardrock’s grip. “Glad to meet ye. Another Callahan, eh? Glory be, but the fightin’ Callahans are all over the world! I seen ye to the dance the other night. Hear ye knocked Connie clear off’n the dock, eh? Good for him.”
“Sorry I had any trouble,” said Hardrock. “I want to spend the summer up here, and it seems like I got off to a bad start.”
“More like a good start,” and Tom chuckled. “Drop in to the store any time. It’s glad to see you I’ll be. See ye later, Vesty!”
The two men walked up the road together, meeting not a few folk. To more than one of these Vesty spoke, introducing Hardrock with emphatic cordiality, stopping now for a word or two and again for a bit of talk, so that it was a good hour afterward when they approached the canoe.
Hardrock, who wanted to pick up a trout or whitefish on the way back, showed his trolling line to old Vesty, and had a word of advice as to tackle, and then Vesty gave him a word as to other things.
“Lay low, me lad. When news comes, I’ll have Tom Boyle Gallagher’s boy bring it to ye—Micky, his name is. There’s a few Gallaghers left on the island yet, praise be, and any friend o’ Danny’s is goin’ to have a square deal. Be off with ye now, and good luck.”
Ten minutes later, with the canoe leaning over to the breeze as she drew out, Hardrock was steering north and exchanging a last wave of the hand with Vesty Gallagher. Under the latter’s optimistic influence and quick friendship, his stunned depression had quite evaporated. He was himself again, no longer hesitant or doubting, ready for whatever might happen.
“Blamed lucky thing I met him!” he thought, as he let out his trolling line and settled down to steer for home. “And I sure hope that wounded chap will open up and talk before long. Well, by gosh, I feel a heap better than I did! I think I’ll drop in on Matt’s camp—ought to get there about noon. Going to marry Hughie Dunlevy, is she? Not if I know it! Not, that is, unless she wants to, and I’ll gamble she doesn’t.”
With just the right amount of ballast to hold her head down, the canoe was a marvel for speed, and Hardrock Callahan, who had not spent all his life in Arizona, knew how to handle her. Thus it was not quite noon when he bore up for the north point on Hog Island.
In spite of the big whitefish that came to his line and set his knife to work and brought the gulls wheeling to pick up the offal, Hardrock had plenty of time to reflect on his situation. He was not particularly given to reflection, but just now there was need of it. One man was dead; another was badly wounded; by good fortune, no one knew of their encounter with Hardrock Callahan, but that story was bound to come out. If the wounded man did not recover, and could not give an account of the killing, investigation would probably fasten the blame on Hardrock, from circumstantial evidence. So far suspicion was not directed at him—but it would come.
“These are slow-thinking people, and the law is probably slower to reach up here,” he mused. “So much the worse when the time for action comes! Looks like it’s distinctly up to me to land the murderers, as a matter of self-protection; and a fat chance I have of doing it! Since there was no mention of Connie Dunlevy being taken to the hospital, he’s probably not so badly hurt as I thought. That gang is against me, sure. Hm! Guess I’ll take counsel with the young lady. She’s got a level head.”
He held in for the strip of shore before Matt Big Mary’s camp, and perceived that the updrawn boat was gone. As his canoe scraped on the sand and he leaped ashore, Nelly Callahan appeared and waved her hand.
“Welcome back! Have you come for more coffee?”
“That and other things,” responded Hardrock cheerfully, holding up the whitefish. “Anybody around?”
“They’ve all gone to finish pulling stakes and wont be back until late,” said the girl. “Did you have any trouble in town?”
“No. I met Vesty Gallagher, and we had quite a talk. Got any nails around here? If you have, let’s get this fish on a slab and we can discuss the weather while it’s browning.”
Searching the shore, he presently espied a slab of mill wood, nailed the opened fish to it, spilled plenty of seasoning over the firm white flesh, and got the slab in position beside the fire. Then he sat down and lighted his pipe and looked at Nelly Callahan, who sat on the end of a log and darned a thick stocking; and presently he told her all that he had learned this morning in St. James.
For a moment her face flashed white, and in the depths of her widened gaze he read alarm and swift fear and wild surmise. Then she was herself again, cool and steady, her blue eyes searching into him with unconcealed tenseness of interest, and only her breath coming a little swifter to denote the startled heart that was in her.
“It seems impossible!” she murmured. “Oh! And when everyone learns of how you used your shotgun on them—”
“Steady! Nobody knows that except you and Vesty,” said Hardrock. “Who’d believe me? They’d say I had a pistol or rifle and dropped it overboard after shooting the two men. And how do you know I hadn’t, Nelly? How do you know I’m not lying?”
She looked at him steadily for a moment, meeting his gaze squarely. Then:
“How did Vesty know it?” she said, and smiled a little. “Don’t be silly. Did you see any other boat around, except theirs?”
Hardrock shook his head. “No, but that means nothing. I couldn’t see far for the rain, and I was intent on them—they’d been following me, you know. If there’s any clue to be gained, it’s from you.”
“From me? How?”
“The shots. You said you had heard shooting. Now, I let off both barrels of my shotgun, no more. I did think that I heard shots after that, but my sinking boat was making such a racket—the exhaust pipe was smashed when they ran me down—and I was so infernally busy handling that canoe, that I didn’t notice them. You did. How many were there? You’d notice the difference between the bang of my shotgun and the crack of rifles, too.”
The girl nodded, and lifting her eyes, stared out toward the blue mass of Garden Island on the horizon.
“There must have been five or six shots,” she said slowly. “Now I think of it, I believe that two did come sometime earlier—that was what drew my attention. Yes, and the others were different. They sounded more like the deep crash of an automatic pistol than the sharp crack of a rifle. But how can that help you? I couldn’t see what happened. I can’t swear—”
“You’re not expected to!” Hardrock responded, and felt through his pockets for a match. “The thing is, to make sure of what you heard. Somebody else was out there—a third boat—”
He broke off sharply. From his pocket he drew a strange object; then recognition came into his eyes as he stared at it. It was the pennant-shaped canvas he had taken from the boat at the Booth dock.
“That’s funny!” he exclaimed, staring at the scrap of canvas. The girl glanced at it, then gave him a puzzled look.
“Why?”
“You know what it is?”
“Of course. It’s the little flag left flying from a fish-trap to show its position.”
“Oh!” Hardrock laughed and tossed it aside. “I don’t know what made me bring it—found it lying in that boat this morning, with a lot of other stuff.”
To his surprise, the girl’s eyes dilated suddenly, excitement leaped into her face.
“What boat?” she demanded. “Not—” “Yes, the one that ran me down. Why?” Dropping her work, Nelly Callahan pounced on the bit of canvas, and lifted blazing eyes.
“Don’t you see! It explains everything! Can’t you remember seeing that flag in the water just before they ran you down?”
Hardrock stared at her, his gray eyes narrowed and glittering.
“Hm! Blamed if I can see why it amounts to much—come to think of it, I believe I did notice such a flag. Ran close to it. Not the same one, probably.”
“Of course it was the same one!” exclaimed the girl, excitedly. She was all animation. “Don’t you see? This flag is painted to denote ownership, so each man will know his own traps! We don’t use them much around here—don’t need to. But the perch season is coming on, and fishermen from Charlevoix and Petoskey and even Cheboygan who work around here need to use marked traps. Now do you see? Hughie Dunlevy and his friends have been fighting the men from outside who come in on their grounds. Well, Marty Biddy Basset and Owen John, as soon as they ran you down, circled back to that fish-trap and probably started to rob it. They broke off this flag so the owners wouldn’t find the trap again, and—”
Hardrock whistled. “And then the owners came along and opened fire! Upon my word, Nelly, I believe you’ve struck it! And nobody noticed this flag lying in the boat last night—”
They stared at each other, until suddenly the girl broke into a tremulous laugh.
“So all you have to do is to find who uses this flag!”
“Who does, then?”
“I don’t know. Any of the men would know, probably.”
“Hm! Vesty said that Hughie and his friends had fought last with some Cheboygan men. He mentioned whisky-running—”
“Yes!” The girl flashed up indignantly.
“And you know what they say about us over on the mainland—that everybody on the Beavers runs whisky from Canada! It’s not so. None of us do that. Jimmy Basset, who’s here with Father, makes whisky—that’s true; but most of the time he’s so crippled up with rheumatism that he can’t fish and do any work, and it’s the only way he has of supporting his family. So nobody else on Beaver makes whisky, and nobody runs it from Canada—it’s those Cheboygan men who run it! And they hide up on one of the islands here until they can sneak it in to Ed Julot over at Harbor Springs for the summer resorters to buy—and then everybody blames the Beaver men! Look after that fish, or it’ll burn—quick, it’s in the fire! I’ll get the coffee and bread.”
The girl was up and gone for her supplies.
Hardrock rescued the planked whitefish from the encroaching blaze, smiling to himself as he did so, over the utterance of the indignant Nelly. He could appreciate her point of view and could even sympathize with it. There was something whimsically just about one half-crippled man being allowed a monopoly on moonshine liquor, by common consent, for his support.
“Thank heaven I’m no prohibition-enforcer!” reflected Hardrock. “I expect she’s hit it right, however, as regards the runners who supply the resort towns from Mackinac to Traverse with booze. These islands are ideally located for their purpose, and the pretense of being honest fishermen—hm! By hemlock, I’ve got the answer to the whole thing! But not a word of it to her. No wonder those fellows opened fire, and shot to kill, when they saw their fish-trap being robbed! But I’d better go mighty slow until I’m sure. There’s nothing on which to hang any legal peg, so far.”
Even though the girl’s theory was right, even though he found the men who used this black-and-white flag, any accumulation of legal evidence as to the shooting was distinctly improbable. Hardrock recognized this clearly. At the same time, he felt confident that he had hit upon one solution of the whole enigma—a solution which promised to be highly interesting, even more so than writing a textbook for mining engineers.
Planked whitefish, fresh from the lake, and coffee, and thick bread; and over the bread, the rich juice of the eternal mulligan, made this time from the white small-mouth bass that swam around the wreck down the shore. Thus the two dined together, not gracefully but well, and by tacit consent avoided the matter of their early talk. Instead, Hardrock spoke of Danny Gallagher and Arizona, and the mines, and gradually fell silent and brought the girl to speak of herself and her life down State, where she had these two years taught school, and the world outside this narrow horizon of the Beavers. Two on an island together—and time was not.
“I stayed in St. James the other night for the dance,” said Hardrock, filling his pipe for the third time, “hoping you were there. I knew you down in Arizona, you see.”
“In Arizona?” Her level blue eyes searched his face, perplexed.
“Sure. Danny Gallagher had some pictures that were sent him. One was of you, standing on a wharf—”
“Oh!” exclaimed the girl. “Why, Hughie took that last summer—”
“You haven’t changed. How’d you like to see Arizona?”
She looked at him, met his gravely steady gaze—then sprang suddenly to her feet and stood looking out at the point. Hardrock caught the deliberate thud-thud of an exhaust, then saw the big launch turning the point. He rose.
“Father’s not in her—yes, he’s lying in the bow!” she exclaimed. Hughie Dunlevy, at the tiller of the launch, waved his hand to her and lifted his strong voice as the launch rounded in toward the sandy stretch.
“Come aboard, Nelly! Get anything you want to bring—come quick! Your dad’s hurt.”
The launch sputtered; her engine died; and she came to a halt with her nose on the sand a dozen feet from shore. The girl made a hesitant movement; then Hardrock caught her up in his arms and waded out to the launch. Dunlevy and the two other men took her from him. In the bow lay Matt Big Mary, eyes closed.
“Badly hurt?” asked Hardrock, as his eyes met the hard gaze of Hughie Dunlevy.
“No. Knee dislocated, I guess; we’ll run him home. Got caught in a line and fell over the engine. You been to St. James already?”
“Yes.” Hardrock’s gray eyes narrowed. “You’ll find news waiting for you. Two of your friends shot up—one dead. Whisky-runners did it, some one said; nobody knows for sure, though.”
Dunlevy looked startled, then waved his hand.
“All right. You been havin’ a good time here, I see. So long. When I come back, you’ll be singin’ another tune.”
“I’ll expect you,” said Hardrock, and smiled.
The engine sputtered into life; the launch was shoved out, circled in a wide arc, and headed south, with Nelly Callahan crouched over the figure of her father. Once she looked back, lifted an arm, waved it in farewell to the man on the shore, as though in token of an unquenched spirit.
“She’s all right,” said Hardrock to himself. “Independent—not afraid of ’em. No need to worry about her; real woman all through!”
He turned to the deserted camp, got the dishes attended to, left everything shipshape, kicked out the fire-embers, and then made his way through the brush along the point of land at this northwest tip of the island. Here, where the bushes thinned out and the land ran out in little islets, he sank down under cover of the greenery, filled and lighted his pipe, and lay motionless, watching the empty waters to north and west and south. Safely tucked away in his pocket was the little black-and-white pennant of painted canvas.
Now, as he watched the sun glinting on the waves between the point and Garden Island, where his motorboat had gone down, he reconstructed in the light of his present knowledge what had taken place there yesterday morning. He was quite certain, now, that he recalled seeing that little pennant of canvas sticking out from the water. Those two recklessly pursuing men from St. James must have seen it also, as they drove down upon him. Then, when he had vanished in the rain to leeward, when after his two shots they probably thought him dead or drowning, they had put back for that fish-trap flag. Why? Not because it marked a fish-trap alone, but because it marked something else of which they knew. And, drawing down upon that little flag, had been a third craft, unsuspected in the obscurity.
“They broke off the flag, were probably fishing up the trap, when the other chaps appeared and opened fire. Then what? The chances are a thousand to one that the murderers didn’t wait to get what they had come for. One doesn’t shoot down a couple of men and then stick around long. Besides, the flag was gone, and there were heavy rollers running, and the sheets of rain obscured everything. They couldn’t hope to find the trap again in all that muck; they’d have to go away and come back in good weather, when they might locate the spot by means of landmarks and bearings from shore. Therefore, if my theory is correct, if they’re really whisky-runners and that little flag marked a stock of whisky as well as a fish-trap—all I have to do is to wait. No boat has been up this way all morning. Either I’d have seen it, or Nelly would have seen it and remembered about it.”
Conviction grew upon him that he had the right steer by the tail. Fishermen would not be apt to open deadly fire, even if they caught other men robbing their traps; but liquor-runners take no chances. Again he was impressed with the absolutely ideal situation of the islands—many, like that on which he now lay, uninhabited. East-coast fishermen could bring in the stuff from the Canadian side and plant it, and go away again. Other fishermen from the adjacent mainland, from the upper peninsula, from the Wisconsin shore, could come and get it. Who would suspect? And if anyone did suspect, as Nelly Callahan had said, the island men would get the blame. The Beavers had a reputation for turbulency which was less justified than forced upon them.
The afternoon hours waned, and the sun sank, and nothing happened. Nothing broke the horizon save the big green-and-white fishboat belonging to the three Danes, coming in from the north and heading for the settlement on Garden Island, with a swarm of gulls wheeling and trailing behind her to tell of fish being gutted and nets being washed. She vanished, and Hardrock rose stiffly, went to his canoe, shoved out and paddled around the point.
He sought his own camp and found it undisturbed. As he rolled up in his blankets that evening, it came to him that he had not yet settled matters with Matt Big Mary.
“Good thing!” he murmured. “But I wonder—was he worse hurt than they said? That yarn didn’t sound very plausible about his falling over the engine—hm! Should have thought of that before. I don’t like that fellow Hughie Dunlevy. No matter. Tomorrow’s Sunday, and I’ll keep quiet—and watch. Good night, Nelly Callahan, and pleasant dreams!”
He fell asleep, smiling.
Sunday on Beaver Island was theoretically a day of devotion. Not even the mailboat came over from Charlevoix, since there were no fish-boxes to be transported. It was a day for visiting, for going to the church down the highway three miles from St. James, for eating and drinking and talking. The only man on the island who went his way regardless was old Cap’n Fallows, who was a socialist and proud of it; but as the old skipper had been here thirty years and was by this time related to everyone else, he was regarded with unusual tolerance—a shining bad example of a godless old man, happy in his iniquity and glorying in his lonesome politics. Also, the Cap’n was something of a doctor, after a fashion.
He was in demand this Sunday. Marty Biddy Basset was dead and buried that day, and Owen John had gone to Charlevoix on the mailboat, talking in his fever but talking no sense; but down the island by the old Russian baron’s farm lay Matt Big Mary Callahan, with a hurt leg and a hurt head. Matt had been struck by a big pile and had fallen over the engine of the boat, and would not walk again for two days, so he had gone home to the farm and Cap’n Fallows was doctoring him with liniment and talk on the rights of man.
There was much to talk about, and there was a gathering at the store all day long, while out at Jimmy Basset’s farm the keg of white liquor grew lower every hour. The Bassets and Dunlevys were taking counsel here and there, the older heads advising patience, the younger heads listening to Hughie Dunlevy and his brother Connie, who was badly bruised but not seriously hurt. Connie was two years younger than Hughie, and if not so strong, was just about as hard to kill.
It was true enough that Vesty Gallagher spoke a word to the priest; and the priest, who was the only man obeyed by other men on Beaver Island, passed along the word. Thus it came about that Hardrock Callahan was accepted as neither a revenue man nor an enemy, and his affair with the Dunlevy brothers was taken for what it was—a private matter. Hughie Dunlevy heard of this, and moved cautiously and spoke softly; but with his brother Connie and four other lads he was neither cautious nor soft. He and they gathered in Jimmy Basset’s kitchen that evening and went into the affair at length.
Among the six of them it was not hard to guess close to the truth. Connie Dunlevy knew that Marty Biddy and Owen John had gone out in the launch to catch Hardrock; nobody else knew this, but he knew it, for he had sent them. And he knew that they, like himself, had been up and raising deviltry all that Thursday night, and like himself had been in liquor.
“They had no guns,” he swore solemnly to Hughie and the other four. “What would they be havin’ guns for, now? It was this felly Hardrock that had a shotgun anyhow, and likely carried a pistol.”
“He told me,” said Hughie, stirring his hot one, “that it was whisky-runners had shot up the lads.”
“How’d he know that?” demanded Jimmy Basset. “If they sunk his boat and he shot ’em, it’s hangin’ he needs. He told ye the tale of whisky-runners, Hughie, for a blind.”
“Most like he did,” agreed Hughie. “We’ll have no outlanders comin’ in here and murderin’ poor helpless lads like them! What story was told on the mainland about it?”
A cousin of the dead man spoke up, his face black and gloomy.
“It was told they had put a box of cartridges into the stove by mistake. Irene Dunlevy is a nurse in the hospital yonder, and Owen John’s father did go over wid him, so there’d be no chance of Owen’s talkin’ to outside ears.”
“Then the matter’s up to us to settle?”
“It is that. There’ll be no officers pokin’ their heads into the island.”
Hughie sipped his hot one reflectively. They looked to him for leadership, and he was not backward in accepting the guidon; at the same time, he was not going to rush headlong into trouble. There had been altogether too much trouble of late, and any rash actions that would compel the law to make an investigation would make everybody on the islands irritated with Hughie Dunlevy.
“We’ll ’tend to him,” said Hughie. “We’ll give him a dose that’ll send him away where he come from. I got a little score of my own to be settlin’ wid him.”
“So I hear,” said one, and there was a snicker. “What’d he hit ye wid, Hughie?”
“Blessed if I know, but he’ll not do it again! You felleys go easy wid your talk, now. We got other things to mind besides him. I’m goin’ to cut loose every fish-trap up and down the shores that aint ours, and if we meet them Cheboygan or Manistique lads, we’ll make ’em like it.”
“That’s the stuff, Hughie!” came the chorus of affirmation.
Now Jimmy Basset spoke up, as he limped over to the stove and refilled the kettle.
“After church this mornin’ I was talkin’ a bit wid Matz Larsen. Ye know that little point where his wharf and fish-sheds are, on the Garden Island shore up beyond his place? He was tellin’ me that on Thursday mornin’ at the break o’ the storm, him and his boys were mendin’ nets when they seen a strange boat off the island, cruisin’ about.”
“Eh?” Hughie’s eyes narrowed. “What sort o’ boat was it?”
“Green wid a red stripe around the house. A stranger. Up from Ludington, maybe, or one o’ them ports. It was no Cheboygan boat; that’s certain.”
“Well,”—and Hughie stood up,—“it’s time I was off, for I’ve a date. We’ll go over to Hog Island tomorry night and attend to the lad from Arizona. We’ll take my big open boat that the resorters use for fishin’-parties. Jimmy, fetch a quart along to cheer us up. I’ll have the boat ready as soon as it’s dark.”
“Then put lights aboard her,” said Connie Dunlevy, “for the coast-guard has been raisin’ hell wid the lads for carryin’ no lights.”
Hughie laughed at that, and swung away. It was little he cared for the coast-guard.
So, with all this keeping the island busy, and no boats putting out that Sunday, and the wind in the east so the tourists could make up no fishing-parties, there was none to notice the small launch that came drifting up the channel toward sunset, past the length of the island, with a man standing in her and waving his shirt as a signal for help. The coast-guard might have seen her, but it was dark before she came within sight of the point, and then the channel current carried her out and on past Pismire Island. So she went on drifting up between Garden and Hog, and no lights on her, and not a soul knew of her being around. It was well they did not, for if they had seen her and had seen the man who was aboard her, there would have been some tall talk.
It was Hardrock Callahan who heard the man yell. Hardrock had been down the island shore in his canoe that afternoon, having grown tired of waiting for boats that did not come, and had been pulling bass from around the wreck in Belmore Bay. He kept nothing under three pounds, and he had sixteen on his string when night came, and stayed to make it twenty. He was paddling up for the end of the island in the darkness when he heard a long shout and then another one coming from the water, and started out to see who was there. When he sang out and got answered, he paddled up toward the launch.
“Engine’s broke down and my gas has leaked out,” called the man in the launch. “I left Charlevoix this morning and have been drifting up the channel all afternoon. Can you give me a lift?”
“You bet,” said Hardrock, coming alongside. “No oars aboard?”
“Nary a sign. What you got there, a canoe? You can’t pull the launch with that.”
“You climb aboard and take my other paddle,” said Hardrock, “and save your breath to work with. Got any grub? No? Then we’ll get around to my camp and fry some of these bass, and in about an hour you wont give a cuss whether you get home tonight or not.”
The other laughed, transferred skillfully to the canoe, and after making fast a line to the launch, they set out. Neither man spoke as they slowly worked the dragging launch ahead, got her around the point, and then down the north shore to Hardrock’s camp.
“Here we are,” said Hardrock as he headed in. “You might get some of those bass cleaned while I get the fire started and the skillet hot. Coffee, too. We can attend to your launch afterward. Better pull her up out of sight.”
“Why?” queried the other man.
“Tell you later.”
The two men observed a mutual reticence until, half an hour afterward, they were sitting down to their meal. Then the stranger, who was a grizzled, roughly dressed man with a pair of keen eyes above a draggled mustache, grinned across the fire and put out his hand.
“My name’s Fulsom, and I sure owe you a heap o’ thanks.”
“Callahan’s mine—Hardrock Callahan.”
As they gripped, Hardrock noticed that Fulsom looked startled, but no comment was exchanged. Both men were too hungry to indulge in needless talk. Not until the last scrap of bass was cleaned up and the coffee-pot was empty, and pipes were lighted, did Hardrock learn who his visitor was. Then Fulsom, puffing soberly, eyed him for a moment and spoke.
“Hardrock, I’m mighty sorry ’bout all this. Looks to me like luck was playing hard for both of us. You don’t know what I come over here for?”
“I’m not a mind-reader,” Hardrock chuckled. Fulsom threw back his vest to show a badge pinned to his shirt.
“I’m the Sheriff o’ this county, and the main reason I come over here today was to sort of pry around a bit. You aint an island man—I know ’em all. I’ve knowed ’em for twenty year more or less. Reckon you’ve heard of the killing the other day?”
Hardrock nodded reflectively. He liked this sheriff—read the man for straight and square and unafraid. None the less, in the keen probing of those eyes he read danger.
“Yes. Heard about it yesterday in St. James.”
Fulsom puffed, spat into the fire, and asked a question.
“Know anything about it?”
Despite the careless tone, despite the offhand manner of the speaker, Hardrock sensed something beneath the surface. He was astonished by the manner in which he had met Fulsom; yet he was not astonished that the sheriff had appeared. Fiction to the contrary, every abnormal detail of life in civilized communities involves a consequence; for what we call civilization is simply the ways of men set in a groove, and any departure from that groove brings investigation.
With this intangible flash of mind to mind, with this singular “feel” that something unsaid lay behind that question, Hardrock considered briefly and then answered it in utmost frankness.
“Sheriff, if I told you all I knew or thought about it, the chances are that you’d arrest me.”
Fulsom gave him a glance, and grinned.
“I’d have a hell of a job doin’ it, wouldn’t I—not to mention gettin’ you off to jail?”
Hardrock broke into a laugh. “Good for you! Here’s what I know.”
And he told what had happened to him since arriving on Beaver Island.
Sheriff Fulsom listened to the story without a word, puffing as methodically after his pipe had smoked out as before; he sat like an image of bronze, giving no sign of what was passing in his mind. With such a man Hardrock was at his ease, for he knew now that he might expect some measure of justice, and not hasty jumping at conclusions for the sake of political prestige.
“You got your nerve to tell me all this,” said Fulsom, when he had finished.
Hardrock knocked out his pipe and filled it anew. “No witnesses present. Besides, I figure you as square.”
“That’s the hell of it—I got to be square all around. You’re under arrest for that shootin’, Hardrock Callahan.”
“Eh?” Hardrock stared, for the Sheriff had not moved an inch. “You’re in earnest?”
“Yep, so far as it goes.” Fulsom wiped his mustache and chuckled. “Got to do it. I been nosing around the hospital, and heard that wounded man talkin’ in his fever. Mentioned your name. Now, I’m right well acquainted with the Beavers—too durned well acquainted to come over here on business without a posse, unless I come alone. These lads over here may have their faults, but they’re men clear through. If I come over alone, I get a square deal. If I come with a posse, I’m liable to get most anything. Well, now, I come over to look you up and see what I could learn. And, from hearin’ your story, looks like it’s my duty to arrest you. Any law officer would have to do it on the evidence.”
“All right,” said Hardrock whimsically. “Then what? You can’t prove my story.”
“Nope. All I figure on is doin’ my duty and breakin’ square with all concerned. Now, you’re arrested, and charged with murder. You’re in my custody. You and me understand each other, I guess. I don’t believe for a minute that things aint exactly as you’ve told ’em to me, and I figure to stay right here a spell and help you work ’em out. Let’s see that there fish-flag.”
Hardrock dived into the tent and looked up the bit of canvas. In his heart he felt a queer sense of relief, a dropping away of all oppression. This officer was not to be feared. He was under arrest, and if nothing turned up, he would have to stand trial, and the evidence was bound to be bad—yet Fulsom was square, and this counted for everything.
“I’m mighty glad we met up,” he said as he came back to the fire. “And I reckon we do understand each other, Sheriff. Here’s the flag. Know it?”
The Sheriff gave it a glance, then laid it down.
“Yep. Belongs to Johnson Brothers of Ludington. But they aint fished up around these parts—aint fished at all since last year. Sold out, lock stock an’ barrel, to some fellows from Escanaba, I heard, who were carrying on the business. Now, either those fellows are running nets up this way, which I don’t hardly think is so, or else it’s like you say—they’re running something else for bigger money. S’pose you and me go out early in your canoe and look for that fish-trap. Eh?”
“You’re on,” said Hardrock cheerfully.
The boats went out Monday morning, went out early. They went out from the St. James harbor and from the scattered holdings on the other islands, boats of Indians and white men, out to the fishing grounds where lacy gill-nets and hidden trap-nets and long bloater lines and other legal and illegal methods of obtaining the finny prey were put into effect. Boats bobbed here and there against the horizon of island or sea or reef, and engines whirred as the lifters brought the nets aboard, while trout and whitefish and perch went tumbling down into the tubs. There was heavy work to be done, since the fish must be all cleaned and boxed and in to St. James to make that afternoon’s mailboat.
All that morning Hardrock’s canoe bobbed here and there off the end of Hog Island, with a drag out from bow and stem, countering back and forth. It was too shallow hereabout for the big fish, and the waters looked all deserted, with only a sparkling flash of gulls off the blue line that marked the north end of Garden to show that a boat was working there beneath the horizon.
Back and forth they went, and found nothing, though they searched hard enough for any sign of the black ropes that might mark a trap. Nothing came near them on the water, excepting a covey of young ducks that bore down and then wheeled and went flashing away through the waves in a hurry. With noon, they returned to camp, where the Sheriff’s launch was drawn safely out of sight among the bushes down the shore, and lunched leisurely, and then returned again to the search.
It was nearly three o’clock when at last they found the trap, and then only by accident, for one of the drags picked up the mooring line, and Hardrock hauled the canoe along this until the dim mass of the trap itself was under the canoe. Fulsom came to his assistance, since it was no light task to haul in the heavy lines without tipping the canoe, and together they got it to the surface. They could see perch in it, and big Bullheads from the mud bottom, and one lordly yellow sunfish, but no whisky.
“Hold on!” exclaimed Fulsom, who knew more about traps than did Hardrock. “Hold her till I get a grip on that mooringline! Now let go, and catch hold.”
Now they tugged at the line, and bit by bit worked loose the anchor down below, and after a time got it on the up-heave. Hardrock was leaning far over on the line, depending on Sheriff Fulsom to balance the canoe, and giving his entire attention to the rope below him. This came heaving up soggily from the depths, and presently disclosed another line knotted around it and hanging straight down.
“Thought so!” came the exultant voice of Fulsom. “Haul in on the short line, now—”
In another moment the end of this came into sight, and showed a firmly lashed case of liquor. Hardrock glanced up over his shoulder.
“Want it aboard?”
“If we can get it, yes. No telling how many more cases there are, but we’ll have to leave ’em for the present. We’ll see what this is—make sure of it. Looks to me like you needn’t worry about that murder charge any more. Better move lively, too. Looks like a boat is heading this way from Beaver. Left my binoculars in camp, so I can’t tell much.”
Hardrock could not pause to look—he got the box in under the canoe, then came the ticklish matter of swinging it aboard. This was finally accomplished, though at imminent danger of capsizing the frail craft; then he straightened up for a look at the approaching boat. It was still half a mile distant, and bearing up between the islands as though heading for them.
“Better get in to shore,” said Fulsom. “I aint anxious to be recognized around here until it’s necessary, the way things are now. Looks like we got some Canadian Club here, all right—we’ll open her up and make sure. Set that extry paddle in the trap to mark her before we go.”
Hardrock nodded and made fast the paddle so that it floated on the line from which the whisky-case had been cut, then he headed the canoe for the point and pushed her hard. Whether that boat was heading for them or not, he meant to take no chances.
In ten minutes he was cutting through the shallows inside the point and was out of sight of the boat. When they came to camp, they speedily lifted the canoe ashore and in among the trees. Then Fulsom, obtaining Hardrock Callahan’s woods hatchet, began to pry at the lid of the whisky-case.
“Aren’t you tampering with evidence?” said Hardrock, chuckling.
“Who, me? I aint no prohibition officer,” returned the Sheriff dryly. “No sir, I never voted for no prohibition, but I aim to do my duty. First thing is to find out if this stuff is whisky or not. Can’t tell by the box, can’t tell by the label—”
“The only way is to taste it, eh?” laughed Hardrock. “All right, I’m with you, and will give expert testimony. Go to it! We can’t afford to make any mistakes; that’s sure.”
The case opened, Fulsom produced a bottle, unhurt by its immersion, and attacked the cork. When this was out, he handed the bottle to his nominal prisoner.
“Let’s have your verdict, Hardrock!”
The latter tasted the contents, and grimaced. “It’s the stuff,” he returned, handing back the bottle. The Sheriff promptly tilted it, and held it tilted until his breath was gone. Then, gasping, he lowered it, and replaced the cork.
“Gosh, that’s good!” he observed. “Wisht I could keep the whole bottle.”
“Go ahead.”
“Nope.” He slid it back into the case. “I could sort of ease my conscience by havin’ an excuse for one drink to make certain what the stuff was. And I sure made that drink a good one! But any more’d be stealin’ evidence, which I don’t aim to do. S’pose you slip out to the shore and keep an eye on that there boat. Maybe she’s the one we’re lookin’ for. I’ll lay up out o’ sight till I see who it is.”
Smiling to himself at the odd conceit of the Sheriff, whose regretful devotion to duty was indubitably sincere, Hardrock left the cover of the trees and returned to his clearing. He was just in time to see the launch which they had observed come circling around the point and head in. To his astonishment, he saw the figure of Nelly Callahan standing in the bow, while another figure aft was tending the engine.
The girl waved to him eagerly, while her companion, a young fellow no more than a boy, shut off the engine and let the boat run in until her nose touched the sand. By the flush of excitement in the girl’s face, Hardrock guessed that she carried news of some kind. She jumped ashore, then turned and waved her hand at the boy.
“Hardrock, this is Tom Boyle Gallagher’s boy Micky—Vesty Gallagher was sending him over to find you, so I came along to bring the message myself. I knew more about it than Vesty did, anyway, because I heard Hughie Dunlevy talking to Father last night—”
“All right,” cut in Hardrock. “Wait just a minute, will you? Come ashore, Micky. Got any gasoline aboard?”
“Ten gallon in the tank still,” said the boy, grinning.
“Know anything about engines?”
“He knows all about ’em,” broke in the girl. “Why?”
“I have a launch down the shore that I’d like to have him look over. She’s down by that clump of sumach, Micky, drawn up. See if you can find the trouble, will you? We may have to put her into the water.”
“Sure,” and Micky started off. Hardrock turned to the girl, smiling.
“Excuse me for the interruption, but I had a bit of news too, and didn’t want him to overhear. Now come and sit down and tell me what’s on your mind.”
They sat down together on a fallen log at the edge of the clearing, and Hardrock got his pipe alight.
“Two things,” said the girl, “or maybe three,” and she laughed. “First, Hughie and some of his friends are coming over here tonight. I heard him tell Father they meant to drive you away, and send you back to Arizona.”
Hardrock, thinking of the Sheriff among the trees, broke into a hearty laugh.
“Go on,” he said after a minute. “Go on! What next?”
“Isn’t that enough? Vesty got wind of it, and sent Micky off to warn you. There’s no telling what they’ll do, really—and it’s nothing to laugh about!”
“It will be, I promise you,” and Hardrock chuckled. “Not for them to laugh about, though. Don’t mention it to anyone, for he doesn’t want it known—but Sheriff Fulsom is over there in the trees now. It’s his launch that is down the shore. I picked him up last night—he was drifting up the channel, disabled and out of gas. He and I are working on this business, and we’ve already proved my ideas right by finding that fish-trap and a case of whisky with it. There are other cases at the same spot, probably.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. “Oh, good!” she exclaimed.
“And I don’t forget that I owe the tip to you, either,” he went on. “Well, what next?”
“Hughie thinks that you did the shooting, but he isn’t sure. He told Father that a strange launch had been seen around here—a green boat with a red stripe running around the house. A fishboat. I thought right away that it might be the one—”
“Good for you, Nelly Callahan! I’ll bet a dollar she’s the one we’re looking for. Any further news from the chap who went over to the hospital?”
“He’s still between life and death, they said.”
“Looks bad. Well, what else is on your mind?”
She looked down at the sand, stirred a branch of ground-cedar with her foot, colored faintly. Then her eyes, direct and searching, lifted suddenly to meet his gaze.
“Nothing.”
Hardrock frowned. “Something you don’t want to tell me, you mean?”
“Yes. Please don’t ask.”
For a moment Hardrock looked into the troubled depths of her eyes, and the answer came to him. He remembered his talk with her father; he could make a shrewd guess at about what that sort of a man would do and say to the girl.
“All right, I wont,” he said abruptly. “You remember what we were talking about when the boat came along and you had to jump in and go? About Arizona, and you, and Danny’s picture of you. That’s why I came up here to the Beavers, Nelly. Now let’s not have any discussion of the question. I don’t want to know what your father said, or how he may have reported what I said to him. The facts are that I came here because I had seen your picture, and now that I’ve met you, I’m going to stay here for a while. I told your father so, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Here’s Micky coming back, so let’s drop the subject until a better time. I’ll be taking you to the dance Thursday night, as the boys say. What’s the good word, Micky?”
The grease-smeared lad grinned widely.
“Ye can’t run an engine without a spark, can ye? Sure, she’s all right—I’ve got some extry batteries here and can fix her up in no time.”
“But that wont fix the leaky gas tank.” Hardrock looked at the boy’s boat—an open launch of no great size. “See here, Micky! Could you run off some gas into that big tin can aboard your boat, and siphon that into the carburetor, and run my launch into the harbor? If you can, there’s a ten-dollar bill for you. Leave your boat here and I’ll rent it until you can get my tank soldered up.”
“You bet!” exclaimed the youth eagerly. “Half an hour and I’ll have her in shape. You going back with me, Nelly?”
“Yes, and hurry up,” said the girl. “We don’t want to be out all day and night.”
Between them, Hardrock and Micky got the Sheriff’s launch back into the water, and the boy fell to work. There was no occasion to construct a siphoning arrangement, for he discovered that the leak lay in the piping connections, and stopped it temporarily with some soap. When he had run five gallons of gasoline into the tank and turned over the engine, it functioned perfectly.
“Hop in, Nelly!” he sang out. “We’ll get back ’fore dark.”
“Thank you for coming over, dear girl,” said Hardrock, as he gave Nelly a hand and helped her into the boat. “If I don’t come around before then, I’ll see you Thursday night. Good-by, and good luck!”
“Good-by,” she answered quietly. Then, as the boat circled out from shore, he saw her turn a laughing face, and lift her fingers to her lips, blowing him a kiss. For a moment he stood astounded, then a laugh broke from him, and a long shout.
“I may not wait until Thursday—after that!” he called, and she waved her hand in farewell. Then the launch was drawing around for the point, and passed from sight.
Sheriff Fulsom appeared from the bushes, and he regarded Hardrock with twinkling eyes.
“Gosh, ye look right happy over something!” he commented dryly. “Say, this was a good job ye done, too—got us a launch all shipshape! They’ll recognize my launch over to St. James, but no matter. Nobody’ll see it until tomorrow anyhow.”
“You heard what she told me?” demanded Hardrock. The Sheriff nodded.
“Yep. I don’t know that boat, but no matter. She’s our meat, I reckon, if she’ll only come and pick up that shipment o’ case goods! But what about them fellows coming over here tonight?” His shrewd gaze inspected Hardrock gayly. “Looks to me like you and Dunlevy are bound to fight it out, young fellow!”
Hardrock chuckled. “We should worry about what happens tonight. I’m your prisoner and if you don’t protect me— Hello! Sheriff, where are your binoculars? Get ’em!”
“Gone with my launch, durn you! Why? What you lookin’ at?”
Hardrock, who was staring out to the northeast, drew back from the shore.
“Looks to me like our boat—see her? Green, sure enough; can’t tell about the red stripe. Get back out of sight, Fulsom. Here—help run this launch up a little first! Move sharp. They mustn’t suspect anyone is here. Can you make her out?”
“Yep. That’s her,” affirmed Fulsom confidently. “Go get your shotgun, Hardrock.”
The round ball of the sun was hanging low above the purple line of Garden Island in the west, and the breeze was down until there was hardly a ripple on the water. From cover of bushes along the point, Hardrock and Fulsom watched that green fishboat, a red stripe running broadly around her, spin past the point and round it, and head for the floating paddle that marked the whisky-cache.
“She’s fast,” said the Sheriff appraisingly. “Built for the work. She came up from the south, all right, followed the channel through past Gray’s Reef as though going to the straits, then cut straight west and headed here. She wasn’t taking any chances by coming up past Beaver.”
“What’s your program?” demanded Hardrock.
“Get out in that launch, and get quick. You got your shotgun, I’ve got my pistol. She’ll let us come alongside, and we’ll grab her, that’s all. No time to waste. You’re my deputy—swear!”
“I swear,” said Hardrock, and laughed. “Making a prisoner into a deputy—”
“Oh hell, shove along! We got to move fast. I aim to catch her with the goods.”
They hurried back along the shore and ran out the open launch. Fulsom gave his automatic pistol to Hardrock, took the shotgun, and scrambled into the bow.
“You ’tend the engine. We’ll get ’em back here and put ’em through the third degree separate. Don’t say a word about the murder. Leave me to handle it.”
“With pleasure.”
The engine spat and coughed and puffed, and presently they were slipping out past the long point. The green fishboat had halted at the fish-trap. She was a boat of fair size, housed over except for foredeck, after-deck, and a narrow strip along the sides. The after end of this house was wide open. Forward on each side were wide openings where the lifter brought in nets and fish.
Just now, however, two men were at work forward in the bow, hauling in better prey than fish. Several cases were piled up, and they were getting another case aboard. A third man appeared in the stern, stared at the launch, and called to his companions. All three turned, watching her.
Hardrock headed as though to bear up past them for Beaver Island and waved his hand, to which they made no response. The man from aft had ducked out of sight, reappearing on the foredeck with the others. As Fulsom was apparently at work on something and not interested, the whisky-runners evinced no alarm. Then, when he was opposite their boat and a hundred feet distant, Hardrock shoved the tiller hard down and swung in toward her.
One of the three waved his arm and shouted:
“Git away! Sheer off! We don’t want no visitors.”
Sheriff Fulsom straightened up, pointed down, and shouted something indistinguishable. Hardrock held on his course. Again the leader of the three waved them off, this time with added oaths. Fulsom grinned.
“Got something to show ye! Look here—look at this!”
The Sheriff leaned forward as though to drag something up to sight, then came up with the shotgun leveled. The other boat was now not thirty feet distant.
“Stand quiet and put your hands up! You’re under arrest. Hands up, durn ye!”
The whisky-runners were caught entirely unawares. This boat, obviously an island boat, with only two men in her, had been unsuspected; while to lake-farers any talk of arrest among the Beavers was in itself ludicrous. There was nothing ludicrous about Fulsom or the way he handled his shotgun, however, and after one surprised oath the astonished and dismayed trio put up their hands.
“Run her alongside,” said the Sheriff to Hardrock. “Then go aboard and disarm ’em. Go through her for guns. You three gents roost high and quiet, or I’ll blow daylight into ye.”
“What’s this for, anyhow?” demanded the leader. He was a big, lantern-jawed fellow marked with a scar across his cheek. His two comrades were swarthy men, whom Hardrock took to be Greeks or kindred foreigners. Who are you, holdin’ us up this way?”
“Sheriff,” and Fulsom put up one hand to display his star. “All right, Hardrock.”
As the two craft came into each other, Hardrock jumped aboard the larger boat and made fast a line. The sight of the officer’s badge had disconcerted the trio, and they offered only sullen curses as he swiftly went through them. From two of them he removed heavy automatics, which he tossed into his own craft. The third man was unarmed.
Crawling through the forward opening of the deck-house, Hardrock paused in surprise. There was no lifter in sight, no nets were aboard, nor fish. Under him was a pile of a dozen whisky-cases, the white wood all brown and soggy with water, which had evidently been picked up at some other point in the course of the afternoon. A quick search sufficed to show that no rifles or other weapons were in evidence, and he returned to the foredeck.
“Nothing aboard but whisky, Sheriff, and plenty of that,” he called. “They loaded another cache aboard before coming here.”
“Right thoughtful of ’em,” said Fulsom grimly, and moved back into the stern, after tossing the captured weapons ahead of him. “You three birds hop down into the bow, here. Come along, now, and no talk.”
“Can’t we fix this up, Sheriff?” demanded the leader. “We got some money—”
“Now I’ll soak you for attempted bribery,” snapped Fulsom. “Git down!”
Cursing anew, the scar-faced leader got into the bow of the open launch, and his two comrades followed him. Fulsom looked up at Hardrock.
“Cast off that anchor in her bows and make sure the line’s fast. Give her the len’th. Good holdin’ ground here, and she’ll drift in toward the shore and set pretty. No wind comin’ up tonight, anyhow. I got two pair o’ handcuffs at camp, and when we get these birds fixed up and have supper, we can figger what to do next.”
The three “birds” looked decidedly unhappy. The two Greeks began to talk in their own language, until the Sheriff peremptorily shut them up. Hardrock, meantime, dumped the big anchor over the bows of the green fishboat, watched the line run out until it drew taut, and then climbed back into his own borrowed craft. The sun was just sinking from sight.
“Back to camp?” he asked, and Fulsom nodded assent.
The engine started up, and the boat circled out for the point, the Sheriff standing amidships with his shotgun ready. The three prisoners, crowded on the bow thwart, showed no symptoms of putting up any fight, however.
“Simplest thing on earth,” said Fulsom calmly, “is to handcuff a gent with his arms around a sapling. We’ll do that with two of these birds, and interview the third—give ’em turn and turn about at it. And we’ll keep ’em at far separated trees. And no supper. Make ’em talk better, hungry.”
As they were perhaps meant to do, these words reached and stung the trio. After a rapid-fire exchange of Greek, the leader turned around.
“This aint legal!” he exclaimed savagely. “You aint got no warrant—”
“I got a shotgun,” said the Sheriff, a cold glint in his eyes, “and you’ll taste it if you get gay. So turn around there and set easy. We aint ready for you to talk yet awhile.”
The boat was around the point and heading in for the shore. Hardrock, one hand on the tiller, swept her directly in toward the clearing, threw out the clutch, and after a moment threw it into reverse. With hardly a jar, the prow of the boat came into the ground a couple of feet from shore, weighted down as it was by the three prisoners.
“Now, then,” ordered Fulsom, “you birds hop out and draw her up. Don’t any of you make a break, or I’ll pepper your hides!”
The big leader, with a growled oath, obeyed the order. There was no sand at the water’s edge, the beach being composed of small stones, which farther back ran into sand. The two Greeks likewise got out. The leader took the prow, each of the Greeks seized the gunnel, and they drew up the launch until the bow was on the shingle.
“Now you, Hardrock,” commanded the Sheriff. “Never mind the guns—I’ll ’tend to ’em. Run over to my pile of stuff and fetch the handcuffs, will you?”
“Sure.”
Hardrock stepped past the Sheriff and jumped ashore.
At the same instant, the big leader stooped; and the two Greeks shoved outward on the boat with all their power. Fulsom, caught unawares by the tremendous lurch of the boat, lost his balance, dropped the shotgun, and reeled for an instant. The leader hurled a chunk of rock that struck the staggering man squarely in the side of the head and sent him down like a shot.
The whole thing passed off swiftly, neatly, with increditable precision and accuracy. Even as Hardrock whirled about from his spring, Fulsom was down and the launch was darting out twenty feet from shore.
Then he found all three men on top of him. One of the Greeks came first, and went sprawling in the water as Hardrock’s fist met his face. The second Greek lunged in from one side, a knife in his hand, and took a kick under the chin that laid him senseless, but the leader was hurling himself forward and Hardrock could not evade. Caught in a burly grip, arms locked, both men went down, thrashing. Even then, had matters been equal, Hardrock would have won out, for with a twist he came up on top and rammed a fist into the scarred face—but just then the first Greek swung a stone that laid the man from Arizona prostrate. Dazed and almost senseless from the blow, Hardrock keeled over, and before he could recover he was pinned down under both opponents.
“Tie him up!” growled the leader, and two minutes later Hardrock was bound hand and foot, while the Greek stooped over his unconscious comrade and the burly leader stood laughing and panting. He grinned down at Hardrock.
“So that’s what we think of you and your blasted Sheriff!” he declared. “We’ll let him float to Mackinac, if he aint dead. By the time he gits back here, we’ll sure be on our way. Got a good camp here, aint you? Guess we’ll git us a bite to eat ’fore we bring up our boat and beat it.”
For a little, however, the man had his hands full. The groaning Greek, revived by his compatriot, retrieved his knife and flung himself on the bound captive; the leader interfered, and the trees resounded to bellowed oaths and orders and imprecations. Hardrock, helpless to move, watched and listened grimly. At length the arguments of the leader took effect.
“And ye don’t want to be the same damned fools ye were before, do ye?” concluded the wrathful leader. “We don’t want to be trailed for murder! Leave him be. We’ll fix him so’s he can’t hurt us none—and we wont murder him neither. Ye may think ye can pull a stunt like that more’n once, and get away with it; but ye can’t. How d’ye know that there Sheriff didn’t want ye for the other shootin’, hey?”
The sullen Greek acquiesced, put away his knife, and all three men stamped away up to the camp. Darkness was gathering upon the waters, but Hardrock no longer stared after the rapidly vanishing boat that was drifted off along the shore and toward the open lake. Those words of the leader were dinning in his brain. He knew now who had shot down those two boys from St. James.
It was perhaps five minutes afterward, while some tins of food were being opened, that the three whisky-runners realized they had committed an error. Their leader, whose name appeared to be Marks, was the one who realized it most keenly. He came down to the shore, stared off in the gathering darkness at the boat, now a mere speck in the dusk, and cursed fervently. The shotgun had gone into the lake, and their pistols had all floated away with poor Fulsom. Hardrock chuckled.
“You fellows turn me loose,” he offered, “and I’ll tell you where there’s a boat laid up down the shore.”
Marks turned away. “You’ll tell more’n that ’fore we’re through with you. Shut up!”
The three gathered again about their food, getting a fire lighted and in their clumsy ignorance of the woods heaping on fuel until the yellow flames were leaping high and far. Over such a fire, any cookery was impossible, and Hardrock chuckled at their profane efforts to make coffee without getting the pot too hot to be handled.
He, meantime, while apparently motionless and helpless, was in reality hard at work. He lay, half sitting, against a log between fire and shore, at the clearing’s edge, arms bound behind him. He had been tied up with the first thing to hand—bandanna handkerchiefs produced by the Greeks, and had made the gratifying discovery that the material was old and would tear easily. Therefore he was tearing it, against the log at his back, and by the increasing looseness knew that his wrists were nearly free.
Marks conferred at length with his companions, who were obviously taking their orders from him, and presently the two Greeks rose and stamped off into the darkness along the shore, going toward the point. Marks himself rolled a cigarette and came toward Hardrock.
“If you’re going to starve me,” said the latter, “you might at least starve me on a smoke. Look out your friends don’t get lost.”
Marks laughed easily. “I’ll get you some coffee and a smoke,” he replied, “if you’ll talk. Will you? Or shall I make you?”
“Sure thing,” exclaimed Hardrock. “It’s a bargain. And cut me loose.”
“Not much,” retorted the other, and went back to the fire, where he poured out a tin cup of coffee.
Hardrock seized the instant. His arms came free. Swiftly he got a hand into his pocket—thus far, they had not searched him except for weapons—and slid out his pocketknife. His arms again in place behind him, he opened a blade of the knife, and waited. One cut at his ankles, and he would be free. Without that cut, he dared take no chances, tempting as the occasion now was.
For Marks now came back to him, held the lukewarm coffee to his lips as he drank, then gave him the cigarette and held a match to it. Sitting down and wiping sweat from his face, for it was hot near that big fire, the burly ruffian rolled himself another cigarette. He was almost within arm’s reach of Hardrock—yet the latter controlled himself. Until his feet were free he must attempt nothing.
“Now let’s have it,” said Marks. “I didn’t want them two lard-eaters to get wise. What was it the Sheriff wanted to give us the third degree about?”
“About the shooting you fellows pulled off last time you were here.”
Marks nodded, a frown darkening his scarred features. Evidently he had anticipated this information.
“Aint it hell how ye can’t make foreigners savvy anything?” he demanded, to the astonishment of Hardrock. “Them two fellers have just one notion o’ fighting—to take a gun and kill somebody! I’ll have to let ’em go. I can’t make ’em savvy that there’s a durned sight more danger in a murder charge than in running liquor.”
“You mean they’re working for you?”
“Yep. The blamed fools run on them Beaver men the other day, found ’em lifting the trap out yonder, and riddled ’em—then let ’em go. That’s a fool Greek everytime. I wasn’t along, dog-gone it! I was in Escanaba, sick that day, and ye can’t get nothin’ on me. I got to stand by them fellers, o’ course, and get ’em away safe, but I don’t like it a mite. This sort o’ killing is bad business.”
Hardrock laughed curtly. “What about the Sheriff?”
“Oh, him! He’s a Sheriff, takin’ chances. Same with you—depity, aint ye? Yep. He aint killed, though. He’ll drift over in the channel and’ll get picked up by a barge. We’ll run ye out to Gull Island and leave ye there with some grub. That’s decent all around. A fight is one thing, and killin’ is another thing. I been running booze a year now, and never had a speck o’ trouble before this. Durn them hot-headed Greeks! They’ve spoiled the best little game this side the Soo.”
“You’re sure frank about it,” said Hardrock dryly.”
“Why not? I want you should understand it; I aint anxious to be follered up for a killin’ I didn’t do! Bad enough to have my business busted up. Now I got to land this cargo and then go somewheres else. Dog-gone it! I hope they pass them immygration laws an’ do it quick. A feller can’t make an honest livin’ no more, the way these durned foreigners are everywhere.”
Hardrock broke out laughing. Marks surveyed him darkly.
“Ye may think it’s funny, but I don’t. It aint the law so much, neither. It’s these durned islanders! They’re all over the lakes, them or their relations. If they take the notion it was me responsible for the killin’, they’ll drive me off the lakes, that’s what.”
The man’s viewpoint was irresistible, and Hardrock laughed the harder, while Marks sucked at his cigarette and glowered angrily. Then came the “chug-chug” of a gas engine, and a low call from the darkness. Slowly the shape of the green fishboat drifted in upon the shore and then halted as her bows hit the shallows ten feet from the beach.
“They had to swim to get her, anyhow!” exclaimed Marks. “The durned fools needed a bath.” He rose and went past Hardrock to the shore. “Hey, boys! Toss that anchor ashore so’s she wont drift off. We’ll get away pretty quick, now.”
Hardrock moved his arm, and the little blade of the penknife flashed in the firelight as he slashed the bonds about his ankles. He was free, now—but he must let them all get ashore. His only chance, against the three of them, was to get their boat and leave them here. It was a time for strategy, rather than for fighting; so, at least, he thought. He was to discover his mistake very shortly.
The two Greeks came ashore, bearing a line. It appeared that they had cut loose the anchor rather than haul it in. There ensued a furious storm of oaths from Marks; the two men became ugly, and for a moment it looked as though a row were imminent. Then Marks cooled down, and told them to get some of the supplies from Hardrock’s tent aboard the boat. All three passed up to the tent, none of them observing that the captive was no longer bound.
This was the opportunity Hardrock had been praying for, and he gathered his muscles. Once he could shove out that boat and scramble aboard her, he had everything in his own hands! He drew up his feet, saw that the three men were busily engaged with his supplies, and rose—
While he was in the very act of rising, a voice boomed out among the trees at the clearing’s edge:
“There’s Callahan and his whole crowd—git ’em all, lads! Take ’em!”
Hardrock was already springing for the water, but a figure appeared and blocked him. It was the figure of Hughie Dunlevy. Instantly, Hardrock realized what had happened, and cursed the luck that had brought the Beaver lads here at this moment. From the brush was going up a crash of feet and wild yells, Marks was bellowing, the Greeks were cursing and fighting—beyond a question, Dunlevy thought that they were part of a gang under the direction of Hardrock Callahan.
There was no time for any explanations. The man from Arizona barely had a chance to check his leap for the water, to spring back and gain balance, when Dunlevy was upon him with a roar of battle-fury and a whirl of fists.
“Ye will murder poor lads, will ye?” he yelled, and struck.
Hardrock ducked the blow and answered it with a smash to the wind that stopped Hughie Dunlevy for an instant. Glancing around, Hardrock was aware of the three whisky-runners by the tent, furiously engaged with four or five other men. He and Dunlevy were for the moment alone. Only a glance—then he was driving at his opponent, hoping still to get out and aboard the boat.
That hope seemed vain. A wild swing caught Hardrock under the jaw and knocked him ten feet away; Dunlevy was after him instantly, leaping high in air to come down upon him boots first. He came down only on the shingle, however; and the man from Arizona, evading a savage kick, reached his feet and began to fight.
Hughie Dunlevy gasped and grunted as the blows smashed into him, while before him in the firelight danced that unhurt face with its blazing eyes and its furious unleashed anger. For all his tremendous strength, the islander helplessly gave ground, was driven backward, fists driving into him with relentless accuracy. In vain he tried to grapple, to kick, to gouge—each attempt failed and only drew upon him another terrific smash under the heart.
Wanned as he was by white liquor, having great strength in place of stamina, Dunlevy could not stand up under this battering. Never once did Hardrock strike for the face, but drove in fists like hammers that pounded heart and stomach in frightful repetition.
On the other side of the fire, one Greek was thrashing over the ground with Jimmy Basset pounding him into submission. Connie Dunlevy was down, trying to quench a knife slash that ran from shoulder to elbow. The other three island men were battering Marks, who was badly hurt and groaning as he fought, and the second Greek whose knife flashed crimson in the firelight. Now Marks gave way and came crashing down, and the snarling Greek reeled as a stone smashed into his face.
Hardrock got home to the wind with one direct punch that sent Hughie Dunlevy two steps backward and brought down his hands—drove in another that rocked him, and then set himself deliberately for the finish. His feet shifting perfectly to keep balance, he now put over a light tap to the mouth, and then laughed.
“How d’ye like it, Hughie? Come and get it, boy, come and get it—”
With a gasping bellow of anguished fury, the other obeyed, rushed blindly into the blow that Hardrock smashed in with full force—a perfect solar-plexus knockout. Dunlevy simply doubled up and rolled to the ground.
Two leaps took Hardrock to the boat. As he splashed through the water, wild yells chorused up behind him, and he glanced around to see dark figures bounding after him. He set himself against the heavy bow of the boat and shoved—vainly. He could not budge her. Desperate, he gave up the attempt and with a leap was dragging himself over her rail.
Too late! They were upon him, three of them; that effort to shove her off had lost him his fighting chance. Mad with battlelust and moonshine whisky, they dragged him back and bore him down, all three hurtling in upon him bodily, careless of his blows, so that only they might land blows upon him. Slipping on the stones, he lost balance, went down, was stamped into the knee-deep water—
That was all he knew, for a time.
Presently, half strangled and exhausted, Hardrock came to himself again. This time he found ankles and arms fast lashed by men who knew how to handle ropes. Beside him lay one of the Greeks, dark features masked by blood, beaten senseless and bound; the other Greek lay farther away, muttering low curses.
Hardrock realized that some terrible sound had dragged him to life, and now it came once more—a low scream of agony. His head cleared slowly, as he visualized the scene before him. In the circle of firelight lay Hughie Dunlevy, still unconscious, and by him sat his brother Connie, weak and white and rather drunk, his arm all swathed in crimsoned bandages.
The other four men, by the fire, held the frantically struggling figure of Marks, and were shoving his feet into the red embers. From the man broke another scream, this time rising shrill with pain and horror.
“Quit it! Quit it! I’ll tell!”
“Then talk, ye domned murderer,” growled Jimmy Basset. “Pull him out and give him a drink to make him talk, lads—”
The groaning Marks waited for no drink. “It was them Greeks done it!” he cried desperately. “I wasn’t along with ’em, I tell ye! It was them two done it!”
“All right,” snapped Bassett, lurching a little as he glared down at the captive. “And what about this Hardrock felly? Is he your boss?”
“I don’t know him,” returned the unfortunate Marks.
“Shove him in again, lads—”
Marks screamed and twisted terribly. “No, no! Yes, he’s my boss. Sure he is.”
“Don’t you fools know a man will swear to anything under torture?” demanded Hardrock furiously. “You’re going too far here. Cut this business out!”
Marks was hastily flung aside. They all turned to stare at him. Connie Dunlevy, waving a bottle in his free hand, gave a weak, drunken laugh.
“Glory be, he’s awake! Burn the boots off’m him, byes!”
The four lurched over. Hardrock made one desperate effort to pierce through the liquor fumes to their fuddled brains.
“Hold on, there, boys! You’ve got this thing all wrong. These men are whisky-runners, and they had captured me before you came along. I was getting away—”
Jimmy Basset leaned over and struck him across the mouth, heavily.
“Shut up wid you and your lies! Well we know it’s you that’s the whisky-runner, and behind all this deviltry. So it was them Greeks done the killin’, was it? Well, it was you behind it all, and it’s you we’ll have a bit o’ fun wid the night. Up wid him, lads! Up and shove him in!”
Hardrock felt himself picked up. The next instant, with a wild yell, the four men shoved him at the fire, shoved his feet and legs into the heart of the blazing embers. He made one frantic, frightful effort, kicked himself out of the flames, rolled aside. The four gripped him and lifted him again, with a maudlin yell of glee.
“All together, now!” howled Basset.
“One, two—”
As the shot rang out, Jimmy Basset jumped into the air, then stood staring at his arm that dripped blood. A voice struck on the silence—a voice from the edge of the trees.
“All right, boys—hands up all around! Sheriff Fulsom talking, and two guns to talk with. First man moves gets a bullet in the leg.”
That crisp, businesslike voice bit into their drunken senses like acid. Hardrock lay where they dropped him. Sheriff Fulsom stepped forward into the circle of light, a pistol in each hand, and not one of the islanders moved, after reaching upward.
“Cut loose that man Hardrock and do it durned quick. He’s a Deputy Sheriff of this county, if ye want to know who he is. Cut him loose, Willy John. Move sharp.”
One of the men stooped and fumbled with Hardrock’s bonds. They were all struck silent and were held in a stupefaction of dismay and consternation by the appearance of Fulsom, whom they all knew. A sudden and terrible sanity crept upon them.
“You boys are shoving a good thing too far,” continued Fulsom. “Hardrock and me got them murderers, and then they jumped us. Lucky I aint as soft in the head as I look to be, for a fact! Took me quite a spell to get ashore and come back here, at that. H’are ye, Hardrock?”
“All right,” said the latter, getting to his feet.
“You done some swift action gettin’ out of that fire, sure enough! Here, take a gun and stretch yourself. All right, boys, put your hands down. I’m doin’ the talking for a spell—remember that. What’s the matter with Hughie Dunlevy?”
“I knocked him out,” and Hardrock chuckled. “Connie got knifed by one of these Greeks—badly slashed, I think.”
“All right, Connie, you go climb aboard that there launch, and do it quick—no talk! Jimmy Basset, go with him. We’ll ’tend to your arm quick enough; long’s you can move your hand it aint broke. Git!”
The two men, dazed, obeyed the order and stumbled toward the boat at the shore. Fulsom looked at the other three, grimly enough.
“Now, I want you three boys for deputies. We got to take this whisky boat over to Charlevoix and lock up these birds. Hardrock, got any information to spill?”
The man from Arizona briefly recounted what Marks had told him about the murder by the Greeks. Fulsom comprehended at once, and nodded.
“All right. Willy John, I s’pose you snuck up here in a boat and left her laying down the shore?”
“Yes,” said Willy John, rather sheepishly. “She’s down to Belmore Bay.”
“All right. You three deputies take the pris’ners and get aboard. I’ll rustle up some handcuffs, if you rascals aint lost ’em. Hardrock, get aboard likewise.”
Hardrock smiled. “Sorry, Sheriff. Can’t be done.”
“Eh?” Fulsom eyed him sharply. “We got to have your evidence—”
“You’ll get it. I’ll come over on the mailboat tomorrow.” Hardrock motioned to the figure of Hughie Dunlevy. “I’ve got a little business to settle with this chap, first—I may have to convince him a little more that I’m the better man. Then we’ll have to get his launch and Micky’s boat back to St. James. And I have a very important errand there.”
“Oh!” Fulsom broke into a grin. “Oh! So that’s it, eh? That Callahan girl, eh? Dog-gone you, Hardrock, here’s luck to you! See you later, then.”
He went for his handcuffs. Hardrock looked down at the slowly wakening Hughie Dunlevy.
“Looks like that textbook for engineers is never going to get written!” he murmured. “Sure looks that way. I’ve got to convince this fellow, then I’ve got to convince Matt Big Mary that I’m a good man to marry his daughter, and then I’ve got to convince the daughter of the same thing—but, I guess an Arizona Callahan can do it, by gosh!”
And he grinned happily.