"Well, as you have all said, I reckon it is none of our business," Bill observed.
They sat in thoughtful silence for a few minutes.
"It would be hard on Hunter's wife, if he was caught," Charley said, finally.
"It would be the best thing that could happen for her," Bill declared. "She is a good woman. She works like a slave to support them both. Hunter blows in all the money he makes and lives on her earnings. He beats her like a dog, too."
"The brute!" Walter exclaimed, hotly.
"Dar's five hundred dollars to be gib to de one what catches de booze sellers, ain't dey?" Chris inquired. "'Pears like hit would be a powerful good thing for some one to cotch him an' send all dat money to dat poor woman."
Captain Westfield looked from one to the other with a sheepish grin. "Thar isn't any use of our saying it's none of our business," he said. "Down deep in his heart each one of us knows it is his business. It's always a man's business to stop wrong-doing."
"Right you are," agreed Bill Roberts, with gruff heartiness. "I know we are all thinking about the the same things. It isn't so much that this man and his gang are breaking the law that counts, it's the misery and suffering which he causes that calls for action. There have been ten men killed in the fish camps here the past year, and what caused the killing? Rum, rum brought in and sold by Hunter. And that isn't all the misery he's caused. Think of the beaten wives and neglected children. It's time there was a stop put to it."
"Yes," Captain Westfield agreed. "We are as much our brother's keeper as in the days of Cain."
"I guess we are all pretty well agreed," smiled the practical Charley. "The question is, how are we going to take them. There are nine of them and only seven of us. Of course one of them is only a boy, but then, Walt is pretty well crippled up."