The Nome nugget., 1901-09-17
Convicted Of Murder in the
 First Degree.
ASTDN THE PLOTTER
The Principal Witness for the Prose- CutiOn, Fred Hardy Claims, Is Try. ing to Do Him to Death in Order to Shield Himself.

Fred Hardy. the convicted murderer
 of Florence Sullivan, his brother, Cor
 nclius Sullivan, and F. J. Rooney on
 Cnimak island early in June. was
 brought to Nome on the steamer Scna-
 tor on Saturday morning last. and now
 occupies cell on the upper floor of the | federal jail.
 Hardy does not look like murlcrcr.
 or like d murderer is supposed to look. 1 There is little of the ''tough" about
 him, so far as appearances go. He is young, just 21 years of age, and boyish
 in appearance. lie has brown eyes.
 not very wide apart, it is true, but they are not shifty. for he looks you straight
 in tLe eye, and Converses easily and
 with considerable fuency and much ! earnestness. His smile is good natured. for although under sentence of death, he can still smile, though he does not look the william. His skin iS dark, but not swarthy; his nose is straight and small. and he has small mouth and q chin which a physiognOnist would pronounce weak. He has d pleasant. well-modulated voice and d quiet man. ner. His hair is dark, nearly black. in fact, and he parts it in the middle. A Della Fox curl turns up on either side of tue parting of his hair. in fashion that q boaraingss ssAoel young Isdx would term cute. All in all, Hardy looks like 10000 other young men who may be seen any day on the streets of any great city. His manner is gen. ial, and his jailers say good words for him.
 The other day when NUGGET rep resentatiye was shown to his cell, Hardy bed. He rose quickly when called and responded to the newspaper mans salutation with a genial, boyish smile. Then he talked freely of his case, of his life in the army. his home in Ten nessee and the rurGer of the Sullivan brothers and Rooney on Unimak island Hardy was born in Lexington. Ohio, he says. Afterward his family re- moved to Tennessee, where for many years his father was deputy collector of internal revenue. He is still living. Hardy served three years in the United States army: first in the Second cavalry and afterward in the First and Eleventh Tennessee volunteers, where he rose to second lieutenancy. He was mus tered out in San Francisco on March 2S, last. All this he can prove, he says, if he gets new trial
 He sailed out of San Francisco in April on the fishing schooner ArgO. He says he had money, some $600, but he took passage on the schooner in order to save the price of passage on a tended to jump the fisherman at the first opportunity, and he did, intending to catch steamer at Standpoint for Nome.
 On the same vessel was George Aston. the government witness, upon whose testimony, principally, Hardy was con victed. Aston, he says, deserted first, and the Argos master, thinking he had been losJ in fog while out fishing, looked for him for two or three days. One day the capiasn climbed to the crows nest and saw two small boats in the distance, one of which he recog- nized as that in which Aston had sailed away. -~
 Some days later Hardy went ashore for water and he jumped" the vessel. Later he found, Aston and three other men, deserters from the schooner Dove. In their cabin was the plumber which had been taken from the Sullivan boys tent. Aston, he says, acted in mys- terious manner, advised him to leave the island, and finally suggested that they both leave it. Aston going ahead of Hardy, the former pointing out a poke containing watch belonging to the Sulliyans, which he asked Hardy | to bring with him. Hardy also took !; along two or three guns, and this greatly perturbed Aston, who again hinted vaguely that a murder had been done on the islandAnd they both were in danger of arrest. Hardy claims that 1 he was in absolute ignorance of the