“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.”