“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.