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.”