“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.
CHAPTER VI
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.