H. Bedford-Jones

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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, 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ 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. ”