“Here we are,” said Hardrock as he headed in. “You might get some of those bass cleaned while I get the fire started and the skillet hot. Coffee, too. We can attend to your launch afterward. Better pull her up out of sight.” “Why?” queried the other man. “Tell you later.” * * * * * The two men observed a mutual reticence until, half an hour afterward, they were sitting down to their meal. Then the stranger, who was a grizzled, roughly dressed man with a pair of keen eyes above a draggled mustache, grinned across the fire and put out his hand. “My name’s Fulsom, and I sure owe you a heap o’ thanks.” “Callahan’s mine--Hardrock Callahan.” As they gripped, Hardrock noticed that Fulsom looked startled, but no comment was exchanged. Both men were too hungry to indulge in needless talk. Not until the last scrap of bass was cleaned up and the coffee-pot was empty, and pipes were lighted, did Hardrock learn who his visitor was. Then Fulsom, puffing soberly, eyed him for a moment and spoke. “Hardrock, I’m mighty sorry ’bout all this. Looks to me like luck was playing hard for both of us. You don’t know what I come over here for?” “I’m not a mind-reader,” Hardrock chuckled. Fulsom threw back his vest to show a badge pinned to his shirt. “I’m the Sheriff o’ this county, and the main reason I come over here today was to sort of pry around a bit. You aint an island man--I know ’em all. I’ve knowed ’em for twenty year more or less. Reckon you’ve heard of the killing the other day?” Hardrock nodded reflectively. He liked this sheriff--read the man for straight and square and unafraid. None the less, in the keen probing of those eyes he read danger. “Yes. Heard about it yesterday in St. James.” * * * * * Fulsom puffed, spat into the fire, and asked a question. “Know anything about it?” Despite the careless tone, despite the offhand manner of the speaker, Hardrock sensed something beneath the surface. He was astonished by the manner in which he had met Fulsom; yet he was not astonished that the sheriff had appeared. Fiction to the contrary, every abnormal detail of life in civilized communities involves a consequence; for what we call civilization is simply the ways of men set in a groove, and any departure from that groove brings investigation. With this intangible flash of mind to mind, with this singular “feel” that something unsaid lay behind that question, Hardrock considered briefly and then answered it in utmost frankness. “Sheriff, if I told you all I knew or thought about it, the chances are that you’d arrest me.” Fulsom gave him a glance, and grinned. “I’d have a hell of a job doin’ it, wouldn’t I--not to mention gettin’ you off to jail?” Hardrock broke into a laugh. “Good for you! Here’s what I know.” And he told what had happened to him since arriving on Beaver Island. * * * * *