The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Spell of the White Sturgeon, by
James Arthur Kjelgaard
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Title: The Spell of the White Sturgeon
Author: James Arthur Kjelgaard
Release Date: December 19, 2012 [EBook #41662]
Language: English
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_THE SPELL OF THE WHITE STURGEON_
JIM KJELGAARD
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
NEW YORK
1953
Copyright, 1953
By Jim Kjelgaard
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without permission in writing from the publisher
_Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 53-6314_
Printed in the United States of America
by Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., Binghamton, N. Y.
TO
David LeClair and Richard Smith
_CONTENTS_
_Chapter One_ Storm 1
_Two_ Wreck 16
_Three_ On the Beach 34
_Four_ Trouble for the _Spray_ 54
_Five_ Rescue 73
_Six_ New Venture 89
_Seven_ Partners 109
_Eight_ Action 125
_Nine_ Pirates 144
_Ten_ The Great Fish 160
_Eleven_ Fisherman's Luck 171
_Twelve_ The Pond 184
The characters and situations in this book are wholly fictional and
imaginative: they do not portray and are not intended to portray any
actual persons or parties.
_THE SPELL OF THE WHITE STURGEON_
CHAPTER ONE
_STORM_
Ramsay Cartou leaned on the rail of the ponderous side-wheeler, the _H.
H. Holter_, and watched without interest while a horse-drawn truck
brought another load of cattle hides on board. The sweating stevedores
who were loading the _Holter_ and the belaboring mate who supervised
them began stowing the hides into the hold. The _Holter's_ winch, either
ruined by an inexpert operator or about to fall apart anyhow, was
broken. All the work had to be done by hand.
Ramsay turned to breathe the clean air that swept in from Lake Michigan.
It was impossible, anywhere on the _Holter_, to get away from the smell
of the hides, but at least he did not have to look at them.
Not since he had left the brawling young city of Chicago two days
before, to make his way north to the equally lusty young city of
Milwaukee, had the sun shone. In those two days, while he waited for
repairs to the engine hauling the train in which he was riding, he had
seen nothing of the lake. Now, from the mouth of the river where the
_Holter_ was anchored, he had a clear view, and it was exciting.
The grays of the sky and the grays of the lake were indefinable, with no
clear separation. Ramsay shivered slightly.
The lake was a cat, he thought, a great sinewy cat, and the whitecaps
rolling into the harbor were its sheathed and unsheathed claws. It was
an awesome thing, but at the same time a wonderful one. A trembling
excitement rose within him. The lake was at once a challenge and a
promise--a threat and a mighty lure. He stared, fascinated, and tried to
trace the rolling course of the waves as they surged toward the bank. It
was impossible to follow just one for, as soon as it swelled, it
retreated, to lose itself in the immense lake and renew itself in
endless forward surges. Like recklessly charging soldiers, the waves
cast themselves up on the bank and, exhausted, fell back.
So absorbed was he in the spectacle and so fascinated by the lake, that
for a moment he was unaware of the man beside him or of the words he
spoke. Then a rough hand grasped his shoulder and, reacting instantly,
Ramsay whirled around.
"Why ain't you at work with the rest, boy?"
"Take your hand off me!"
The man who stood beside him was oddly like a rock, a great granite
boulder. Two inches taller than Ramsay's six feet, he had a barrel chest
and long, powerful arms. A leather jacket, with the sleeves cut off,
hung loosely on his upper body, and beneath it he wore a homespun shirt.
His black trousers had been fashioned by an exacting tailor but sadly
misused. They were torn and patched with anything that might have been
at hand. Black hair straggled from beneath his crushed black hat and the
hair needed cutting. His eyes, colorless, were oddly inanimate, like two
glass balls with no special warmth or feeling. A black beard sprouted
from his cheeks and half-hid his face, but the beard did not hide thick,
coarse lips. He repeated, "Them hides got to be loaded! Get to work!"
"Load them yourself!"
"I'll give you a lesson you won't forget, boy!"
"Do that!" Ramsay tensed, awaiting the anticipated attack of the bigger,
heavier man. He felt almost a grim pleasure. He had learned his fighting
the hard way, as anybody brought up on the New York water-front, and
with an irresponsible father had to learn it. The man who faced him was
heavier by a good sixty pounds, but he was a bull of a man and,
probably, he would fight like a bull. Would he know about matadors?
The man's eyes were narrowed to pinpoints, and they seemed to spark.
Sheer rage made his face livid, while his lips were distorted in a
snarl. He drew back, readying himself for the spring that would
overwhelm this brash youth who had dared dispute him. Ramsay poised on
lithe feet, prepared to side-step.
Then fat, fussy little Captain Schultz, skipper of the _Holter_, stepped
between them. He wheezed like an over-fat lap-dog, "Vot you doin'?"
"I want them hides loaded and the ship under way!" the man who faced
Ramsay snarled.
"Ach! Dis man payin' passenger!"
A deck hand, his eyes downcast, hurried past. The man who had ordered
Ramsay to get to work stood still for a moment, glaring. Then,
furiously, soundlessly, he turned on his heel and strode up the
gangplank to the pier. Ramsay watched him go, and he knew that, even if
there had not been unpleasantness between them, he could never like this
man. No matter where they met, or how, they would never get along
together.
Captain Schultz also turned to watch the man depart. Then he gave his
attention to Ramsay.
"Ach! You should be careful 'pout startin' fights, poy."
"So should other people!" Ramsay said, still smarting.
"You should, too. Yaah!"
And, as though he had settled that once and for all, Captain Schultz
waddled away to speak to the mate who was supervising the stevedores. A
little uncertainty arose in Ramsay.
This--this half-wilderness, half-civilization in which he found himself
was a land of strong contradictions. Lake Michigan, with all its fear
and all its terror, and all its inspiration, lapped the Wisconsin
shores. Yet some man could be so little impressed by the vast lake that
he could name a boat for himself. Possibly a man capable of building or
owning a ship like the _Holter_ had a right to think of himself.
Ramsay turned again to look at the lake, and his mind projected him far
away from the worn, slippery decks of the _Holter_. Almost he was
unaware of the two silver dollars in his pocket, all the money he had
left in the world, and of the uncertain future. At the same time, while
his inmost being feasted on the lake, a part of his mind reviewed the
events that had brought him here. He had an abrupt, uncomfortable
revival of a New York memory.
There was a lion, a great, black-maned lion, in the New York zoo. It was
well fed and well cared for, its every need attended. But most times the
lion had still seemed restless and unhappy, and sometimes it had been a
tired thing. Then it was hardly a lion at all but just a weary, living
thing. Ramsay had wondered often how that lion felt.
He had never decided exactly how it did feel; within himself there were
a dozen conflicting opinions. The lion paced its cage, and coming to the
end of the very narrow limits granted to it, it turned and went back the
other way. Coming to the end of the cage, it turned again. But all it
ever found was the place it had already left. Once in a great while the
lion had been very alert and very attentive. It was as though, now and
again, the great animal could scent a wind of which nothing else was
aware. That wind brought him memories of freedom, and happiness and the
unhampered jungle life that had been.
Ramsay had gone often to see the lion, and though he never understood
why, he always felt as though he had something in common with it, and he
understood it partially. New York offered an abundance of opportunities,
but they were well bound and well defined. There had always been a wild
longing, a reckless yearning, within him, and often he thought that the
newspapers which carried stories of the undeveloped Midwest were to him
what the faint jungle scents had been to the lion. He had devoured every
story eagerly. The Midwest was new, the papers had said. Good farm land,
if one wanted to be a farmer, could be had for as little as four dollars
an acre. It was the land of the future.
Again Ramsay jingled the two dollars in his pocket. He had answered the
call of the Midwest because he could not help answering it. He had to
try and to go and see for himself, but at the same time a caution,
inborn in his Scotch mother and transplanted to him, could not be
ignored. Before he burned his bridges behind him he had wanted to make
sure that there were some ahead, and correspondence with the manager of
the Three Points tannery had led to the offer of a job when he came. A
dollar and twenty-five cents a day the tannery was offering able-bodied
men, and there were too few men.
Ramsay looked out upon the lake, and a little thrill of excitement swept
through him. Sometimes he had felt doubts about the wisdom of having
left New York for the Midwest. He had been sure of a place to sleep and
enough to eat as long as he stayed in New York, and again he felt the
two dollars in his pocket.
Troubled, he looked out on the surging lake, and knew an instant peace.
It was worth seeing. It was something few New Yorkers ever saw. The
ocean was at their doorstep, and few of them even bothered looking at
that; but the ocean was not like this. Lake Michigan was fresh and
clean, different, wild and, as the papers had promised, new. Ramsay
tasted the wet air, liking it as he did so.
He turned at a sudden squealing and clatter on the pier, and saw four
men trying to fight a little black horse onto the ship. The horse, not
trusting this strange craft and certainly not liking it, lashed out with
striking hooves. Dodging, the men finally fought it into a sort of
small cage they had prepared. The horse thrust its head over the side
and bugled shrilly.
Ramsay watched interestedly, distracted for the few minutes the men
needed to get the horse into its cage. It reared as though it would
climb over the confining bars, then stood quietly. A sensible horse,
Ramsay decided, and a good one. Only fools, whether they were animals or
men, fought when there was no chance of winning or battered their brains
out against a stone wall. Good animals and good men never considered
anything hopeless, but they tried to fight with intelligence as well as
brawn. Ramsay glanced again at the horse.
It was standing quietly but not resignedly. Its head was up. Its ears
were alert and its eyes bright. It still did not like the ship, but it
had not just given in. Rather, it was waiting a good chance to get away.
Ramsay grinned. The next time, he decided, they would have a little more
trouble getting that horse onto anything that floated. Then he returned
his attention to the loading of the _Holter_.
A continuous line of horse-drawn trucks loaded with hides was coming
alongside the ship, and the stevedores were laboring mightily to stow
the hides away. Obviously whoever owned the _Holter_ intended to load
her with every last pound she would carry. He wanted a paying cargo that
would pay off to the last cent. Almost imperceptibly the ship settled
into the water. The gangplank, that had been almost even with the deck,
now tilted downward.
Once or twice Ramsay saw the bearded, jacketed man with whom he had
quarreled. But the man did not venture onto the _Holter_ again. Rather,
he seemed more interested in getting the hides loaded. Ramsay speculated
on the scene he was witnessing, and then he found the whys and
wherefores, the reasons behind it.
This Wisconsin country was still more than half a wilderness. It had its
full share of wilderness men, but its fertile farm lands were attracting
many Dutch, Swiss and German farmers. Struggling with a half-tamed
country, they did anything they could to earn a livelihood, and some of
them raised beef cattle. The hides were a by-product and the world
markets needed leather. But the leather could not be processed without
necessary materials, and the hemlock trees which provided tan bark were
being cut at Three Points. It was cheaper, and easier, to transport the
hides to Three Points than it was to carry the cumbersome tan bark to
Milwaukee or Chicago. From Three Points, harness leather, sole leather
and almost every other kind, was shipped by boat to Chicago and from
there it was carried to the eastern markets by rail.
* * * * *
It was not until mid-afternoon that the last of the hides were loaded
and the hatches battened down. The side wheel began to turn and the
_Holter_ moved cumbersomely down the river into Lake Michigan. Standing
in his enclosure, the little horse stamped restlessly and neighed again.
He was nervous, but he was not afraid.
Ramsay approved. The little black horse didn't like his cage, but he
would meet the situation as it existed rather than lose his head or
become panic-stricken. Ramsay walked over to the cage and the horse
thrust his velvet muzzle against the bars. When the boy rubbed his nose,
the horse twitched his ears and looked at him with friendly eyes.
Thick smoke belched from the _Holter's_ stack and made a long plume over
the lake, behind the plodding side-wheeler. A strong wind was screaming
in from the north and lashing the water angrily into leaping waves. The
ship nosed into the trough created by the waves and rose again on the
opposite side. Ramsay walked to the bow and leaned over the rail, and a
mighty excitement rose anew within him.
This, it seemed, was what he had wanted to find when he left New York to
go roving. The lake, storm-lashed, was a wild and terrible thing. It was
a beast, but something with a vast appeal lay behind its fury and its
anger. Lake Michigan was the place for a man. It would never be free of
challenge if there was anyone who dared to pick up the gauntlet it cast.
There was motion beside Ramsay, and the deck hand who had passed while
he argued with the bearded man fell in beside him. He glanced at the
man. The deck hand was about thirty-six, older than Ramsay by eighteen
years, and there was a seasoned, weather-beaten look about him. It was
as though he had turned his face to many a raging storm and many a
fierce wind.
He grinned amiably. "Hi!"
"Hi!" Ramsay said.
The deck hand chuckled. "Boy, I thought you were in trouble sure when
you were ruckusin' with old Devil Chad."
"Devil Chad?"
"Yeah. The one who told you to help load hides. He'd of cleaned the deck
with you."
"Maybe he would," Ramsay said. "And then again, maybe he wouldn't."
"He would," the deck hand asserted. "He can lick anybody or anything.
Owns half the country 'round here, he does, includin' most of the
_Holter_. What's more, he aims to keep it. One of the richest men in
Wisconsin."
"Quite a man," Ramsay said drily.
"Yeah, an' quite a fighter. On'y reason he didn't clean your clock was
on account Captain Schultz told him you was a payin' passenger. Devil
Chad, he gets half the fare every passenger on the _Holter_ pays, he
does."
Ramsay knew a rising irritation. "What makes you so sure he can't be cut
down to size?"
"Never has been, never will be," the deck hand asserted. He regarded the
surging lake morosely, and then said, "One of these days this old tub is
goin' to end up right at the bottom of Michigan, it is. Either that or
on the beach. Wish I was some'res else."
"Why don't you go somewhere else?"
"One of these days I will," the deck hand threatened. "I'll just haul
off an' go back to the ocean boats, I will. I was on 'em for fourteen
years, an' quit to come here on account I got scar't of storms at sea.
Ha! Worstest thing I ever see on the Atlantic ain't nothin' to what this
lake can throw at you."
"Is it really that bad?" Ramsay asked eagerly.
"Bad?" the deck hand said. "Boy, I've seen waves here taller'n a ship.
In course nobody ever goes out when it's that bad on account, if they
did, nobody'd ever get back." He scanned the horizon. "We're goin' to
hit weather afore we ever gets to Three Points. Goin' to hit it sure.
Wish this old tub wasn't loaded so heavy, an' with hides at that."
A wave struck the bow, crested and broke in foaming spray that cast
itself up and over the ship. Ramsay felt it, cool on his face, and he
licked eager lips. Lake Michigan was fresh water, not salt like the
ocean, and it was as pure as an ice-cold artesian well. It was also, he
thought, almost as cold.
He looked into the clouded horizon, studying the storm that battered the
_Holter_. He smiled to himself.
Suddenly he became all eager interest, peering out into the driving
waves and focusing his attention on one place. He thought he had seen
something there, but because of the angry lake he could not be sure. It
might have been just a drifting shadow, or just one more of the dark
waves which seemed to fill the lake and to be of all shades. Then, and
plainly, he saw it again.
It was a boat, a little boat no more than twenty-four feet from bowsprit
to stern, and it was carrying almost a full load of sail as it tacked
back and forth into the wind. Ramsay had not seen the sails because,
when he first spotted the boat, it had been heeled over so far that the
sails did not show. Now they were showing and full, and the little boat
sailed like a proud swan with its wings spread.
Ramsay forgot the _Holter_, the man beside him and everything else save
the little boat. The _Holter_ and nothing on it, with the possible
exception of the little black horse, was even remotely interesting. But
this was. Ramsay breathed a sigh of relief.
He should have known. He should have understood from the first that,
when any water was as mighty and as exciting as Lake Michigan, there
would be some to meet its challenge with daring, grace and spirit. The
tiny craft was a mere cockleshell of a boat, a ridiculously small thing
with which to venture upon such a water, but Ramsay could not help
feeling that it would be much better to sail on the little boat than on
the _Holter_.
He kept fascinated eyes on it as it tacked back into the wind. Again it
heeled over, so far that it was almost hidden in the trough of a vast
wave. Saucily, jauntily it bobbed up again.
The _Holter_, that workhorse of the water, plodded stolidly on its
appointed way. Ramsay continued to watch the little boat, and now they
were near enough so that he could see its crew of four. He gasped
involuntarily.
Working into the wind, the little boat was coming back, and its course
took it directly across the _Holter's_ right of way. Ramsay clenched his
fingers and bit his lip fiercely. A collision seemed inevitable.
Wide-eyed, he watched the little boat.
Now he saw its name, not painted on with stencils but written in a fine,
free-flowing script, _Spray_, and the carved Valkyrie maiden that was
its figurehead. A big gull, obviously its tame one, sat on the very top
of the mast and flapped its wings. The _Spray_ had a crew of four, but
Ramsay concentrated on just one of them.
He was huge, fully as tall as the black beard who had accosted Ramsay
and just as heavy, but he was a different kind of man. He balanced on
his little boat's swaying deck with all the grace of a dancer, while he
clung almost carelessly to a line that ran through a pulley.
No inch of the man's shirt and trousers, which were all the clothing he
wore, for he was bare-footed, remained dry, and the shaggy blond curls
that carpeted his head were dripping. White teeth gleamed as he looked
up at the _Holter_ and laughed. Ramsay leaned forward excitedly. He
warmed to this man, even as he had been repelled by the black beard the
deck hand called Devil Chad. The man on the boat was gay and spirited,
and he seemed complete master of everything about him.
The deck hand put cupped hands to his mouth and screamed, "Sheer off!
Sheer off!"
Captain Schultz's voice was heard. "_Dumkopf!_ Go 'way!"
Then, just as it seemed that collision could not be avoided, more sail
bloomed on the _Spray's_ mast and she danced lightly out of the way. The
man with the shaggy curls looked back and waved a taunting hand. Ramsay
turned to watch, but the _Spray_ disappeared in a curtain of mist that
had draped itself between the _Holter_ and the shore. His eyes shining,
the boy turned to the deck hand.
"Who was that?"
"A crazy Dutch fisherman, named Hans Van Doorst," the deck hand growled.
"He'd sail that peanut shell right in to see Old Nick hisself, an' one
of these days he will. He ain't even afraid of the White Sturgeon."
"What's the White Sturgeon?"
The deck hand looked at him queerly. "How long you been here, boy?"
"A couple of days."
"Well, that accounts for it. You see the White Sturgeon; you start
prayin' right after. You'll need to. Nobody except that crazy Van Doorst
has ever saw him an' lived to tell about it. Well, got to get to work."
The deck hand wandered away. Ramsay turned again to face the storm and
let spray blow into his face. He thought of all that had happened since
he had, at last, reached Lake Michigan. This Wisconsin country was
indeed a land of sharp contrasts.
The _Holter_ and the _Spray_. Captain Schultz and the deck hand. Devil
Chad and Hans Van Doorst. A tannery and a fisherman. Local superstition
about a white sturgeon. Ramsay knew a rising satisfaction. This
semi-wilderness, lapped by a vast inland sea, might be a strange land,
but nobody could say that it was not an interesting or a strong one. His
last lingering doubts were set at rest and for the first time he was
entirely satisfied because he had come. A strong country was always the
place for strong people.
Ramsay raised his head, puzzled by something which, suddenly, seemed to
be out of place. For a second he did not know what it was. Then he
realized that the crying gulls which had been following the _Holter_ in
the hope that scraps or garbage would be tossed to them or else
interested in whatever debris the side wheel might churn up, were no
longer there.
Ramsay knew a second's uneasiness, and he could not explain it. He did
not know why he missed the gulls. It was just that they and their crying
had seemed a part of the lake. Now that they were gone, the lake was
incomplete. The boy braced himself against a sudden, vicious burst of
wind.
Even a land-lubber could tell that the storm's fury was increasing. A
sharp patter of rain sliced like a shower of cold knives across the
_Holter's_ deck, and Ramsay ducked his head. He raised it again,
grinning sheepishly as he did so, then gripped the rail to steady
himself. He watched with much interest as the storm raged even more
strongly.
It was driving directly out of the northwest, and it seemed to be
perpetually re-born in the dark clouds that had possession of the sky. A
howling wind accompanied it, and more shrapnel-bursts of rain.
The waves rose to prodigious heights. Dipping into them, the _Holter_
seemed no more than a leaf on this tossing sea. Turning, Ramsay saw the
helmsman clinging almost fiercely to his wheel, as though he would
somehow soften the storm's rage by doing that. In his cage the little
black horse nickered uncertainly.
Then there came something that was instantly apparent, even above the
screaming wind. The rough rhythm of the _Holter's_ throbbing engines
seemed to halt. The ship shivered mightily, as though in pain.
The engines stopped.
CHAPTER TWO
_WRECK_
Shorn of her power, the _Holter_ still followed her helmsman's course.
But it became a listless, sluggish course. The ship was like a suddenly
freed slave that does not know what to do with his own freedom.
For six years she had plodded Lake Michigan, always with the biggest
possible paying load and always working at top speed. Many times she had
groaned and protested, but she had been forced to obey the dictates of
the engine that turned her side wheel. Now the engine, the tyrant, was
dead from misuse of its own power. But without it the _Holter_ had
neither mind nor will of her own.
She smashed head-on into a mountainous wave that set her decks awash.
For another moment or two she held her course, carried by her own
momentum. Then, slowly and unwillingly, as though afraid to do such a
thing and not trusting herself to do it, she swung broadside to the
waves.
A muffled shout floated out of the engine room. Fat little Captain
Schultz, a slicker covering his round body and anxiety written on his
face, was peering down an opened hatch. Sluicing rain pelted the slicker
and bounded off. Ramsay's eyes found the deck hand.
Eyes wide and mouth agape, he was standing near the wheelhouse. Naked
terror was written on his face as he stared at something out in the
lake. Ramsay followed his gaze.
To the starboard, the right side of the _Holter_, the lake seemed
strangely calm. It was as though the wind and the storm did not strike
with outrageous strength there, and oddly as if that part of the water
might be commanded by some inexplicable force. Unable to tear his gaze
away, expecting to see something special, Ramsay kept his eyes riveted
on the calm water.
He saw a ripple, but not one born of storm and wind. There was something
here that had nothing to do with the driving wind, or the cold rain, or
even the tremendous waves. The deck hand covered his eyes with his hand.
At that instant, a great white apparition swam up through the water. It
was a ghost, a creature of nightmares, a terrible thing seen only in
terror-ridden moments. Ramsay controlled an impulse to shout or to flee.
The thing came up to within inches of the surface and wallowed there
like a greasy fat hog. Whitish-gray, rather than pure white, it flipped
an enormous tail while it sported near the surface.
The thing, a fish, seemed fully nine feet long and possibly it carried a
hundred pounds of weight for every foot. It bore no scales but seemed to
be clothed in an overlapping series of armored plates. Its snout,
pointed somewhat like a pig's, was tipped with barbels, or feelers. Dull
eyes showed.
Again Ramsay controlled his fear. The thing, sober judgment told him,
was nothing more or less than a great sturgeon, the mightiest fish of
these inland waters. The fact that it was white, rather than the
conventional gray-green or olive-green, was of no significance whatever.
All living creatures, from elephants down to mice, occasionally produced
an albino. It was not beyond reason that there could be an albino
sturgeon.
Ramsay watched while it swam, and some semblance of cool control
returned to his fevered imagination. This was no grotesque monster from
another world. Telling himself again that it was nothing more or less
than an unusual fish, he watched it sink back into the churning depths
from which it had arisen. He put a shaking hand on the _Holter's_ rail.
It was a fish and nothing else. None but superstitious people believed
in superstition. Then the deck hand's terrified shriek rose above the
keening wind.
"It's him! We seen it! The White Sturgeon! _Gar-hhh!_"
Mouth agape, the deck hand kept his eyes on that place where the White
Sturgeon had disappeared. A great wave washed across the deck, and when
it rolled away the deck hand was no longer visible. Ramsay shook his
head to clear it and looked again at the place where the deck hand had
been standing. Lake Michigan could swallow a man even easier than a pond
swallowed a pebble, for there had not been even a ripple to mark the
place where the deck hand had disappeared. There was not the slightest
possibility of rescuing him. The deck hand had seen the White Sturgeon!
A battering ram of a wave crashed into the _Holter's_ starboard side,
and Ramsay felt a cold chill travel up and down his spine. Fear laid its
icy fingers there, but he shook them off. The fact that the water had
been calm when the White Sturgeon made its appearance and was angry now
had nothing whatever to do with the fish. Rather, the calm water could
be attributed to some quirk, some phenomenon inherent in the storm
itself. Probably the White Sturgeon appeared because, for the moment,
the lake had been calm. Knowing that, the big fish had nosed its way to
the surface. Now that the lake was again storm-deviled, the White
Sturgeon was gone.
Bracing himself against the wind, Ramsay made his way across the deck to
the wheelhouse. He shivered, for the first time aware of the fact that
his clothing was rain-drenched and that he was very cold. It was a
penetrating, creeping cold that reached the inmost marrow of his bones.
When another wave smashed the _Holter_, Ramsay caught hold of the little
horse's cage to steady himself. Within the enclosure, nervous but still
not terrified, the black horse looked hopefully at him.
Ramsay reached the wheelhouse, and came face to face with Captain
Schultz. The little captain's slicker had blown open, so that now it was
of no use whatever in warding off the rain, but he had not seen fit to
close it again. It would do him no good if he did; his clothing was
already soaked.
Ramsay shouted to make himself heard above the roar of the wind. "What
happened?"
"The enchin, she kaput. Like that, she kaput."
Ramsay revised his opinions of the little Captain. At the pier, Captain
Schultz had been only a fat, fussy little man. Facing this dire
predicament, he was not terrified and had not given way to panic. He had
risen to the emergency. Maybe, Ramsay thought, anyone who sailed Lake
Michigan had to be able to rise to any emergency if he would continue
to sail. He shouted again, "Will the ship sink?"
"Ach, I don't know! If we can't get the enchin to go, she might."
"What do we do then?"
"Find somet'ing. Find anyt'ing, poy, an' swim. Be sure you find
somet'ing that does not sink mit you."
"How far are we from land?"
"Ach! That I cannot tell you."
"Did you see the White Sturgeon?"
"Yaah. We still try."
Captain Schultz went all the way into the wheelhouse and disappeared
into the hold. Dimly, out of the open hatchway, came the sound of
ringing hammers. There was a desperate tone in them, as though the men
working in the _Holter's_ hold were fully aware of the grave danger they
faced. On sudden impulse Ramsay ducked into the wheelhouse and descended
into the engine-room.
Captain Schultz held an oil lamp to illumine the labors of two men whom,
so far, Ramsay had not seen. Presumably they were the _Holter's_
engineer and fireman. Another deck hand and the mate stood by, passing
tools requested by the workers.
Down here, in the bowels of the _Holter_, the storm seemed a faraway and
almost an unreal thing. The howling wind was heard faintly, and if the
ship had not been tossing so violently, they might have been in the
power-room of any industrial plant.
The sweating engineer, his face grease-streaked, turned from his labors
to face Ramsay. He spoke with a nasal New England twang. "Was that
White Sturgeon really off the ship?"
"I--I didn't see anything," Ramsay answered.
Captain Schultz flashed him a grateful smile. The workers went on with
their toils.
Obviously, among Lake Michigan sailors, or anyhow some of them, there
was a firm belief in the evil powers of the White Sturgeon. Ramsay
looked again at the little Captain's face.
It was a concerned, worried face, what one might expect to see in a man
who was in danger of losing his ship. At the same time, and even though
Captain Schultz remained completely in command, there was about him a
certain air that had nothing to do with getting the _Holter's_ engine
working again. Ramsay sought for the answer, and finally he found it. A
strong man in his own right, Captain Schultz had seen the White Sturgeon
and he believed in it.
Ramsay climbed the narrow ladder-way leading back to the deck. The
_Holter_ was strong, he assured himself. There was little danger that it
could be pounded to pieces by any sea. Then he looked at the wild and
angry lake and knew the fallacy of his reasoning.
The _Holter_ was strong, but the lake was stronger. Waves, the color of
steel and with the strength of steel, smashed into the ship and made her
shiver. Ramsay heard a shrieking protest as some plank or stay beneath
the deck tore loose.
The _Holter_ shuddered, like a big horse in pain, and settled so low in
the water that waves washed continuously across her deck. There was
another shriek, and she settled deeper into the lake. She was a very
sluggish craft now, with no control or direction, and Ramsay guessed
that the hides in the hold were getting soaked. The ship's nose dipped
to meet a wave, and it did not come up again.
The imprisoned horse bugled his fright. Captain Schultz, the engineer,
the fireman and the deck hand appeared on deck. There was no sign of the
mate; perhaps he had already gone over. The engineer and the fireman
struggled under the weight of a crude raft which they had knocked
together from such timbers as were available. Ramsay looked uncertainly
toward them, and the engineer glared back.
"Get your own!" he snarled. "Me an' Pete made this, an' me an' Pete are
goin' to use it!"
They carried their makeshift raft to the settling nose of the ship, laid
it down, mounted it, and let the next wave carry them off. Ramsay felt a
turning nausea in the pit of his stomach. As the raft went over the
rail, the man called Pete was swept from it. Only the engineer stayed
on, clinging desperately as he was washed out into the angry lake. In a
second or two he had disappeared.
Captain Schultz rolled frightened eyes and said to Ramsay, "Get a door,
or hatch cover, an' ride that."
Suiting his actions to his words, Captain Schultz seized a fire axe that
was hanging near and pounded the wheelhouse door from its hinges. He
dragged the door to the rail, threw it into the lake, and jumped after
it. The deck hand wrestled with a hatch cover, finally pried it loose,
and rode that away.
Ramsay was left alone on the sinking _Holter_. He tried to keep a clear
head, but he could not help an overwhelming fear. This was nothing he
had ever faced before and now, facing it, he did not know what to do.
Finding anything that would float and riding it away seemed to be the
answer. Then the little horse bugled and he knew that he was not alone.
Water crept around his feet as he made his way across the deck to the
cage. He put his hand on the bar, and as soon as he did that the little
horse thrust a soft, warm nose against it. He muzzled Ramsay's hand with
almost violent intensity. All his life he had depended upon men for
everything. Now, in this peril, men would not desert him.
Softly Ramsay stroked the soft muzzle, but only for a second. The
_Holter_ was going down fast. Soon, as the gloomy deck hand had
forecast, she would be on the bottom of Lake Michigan. There was no time
to lose. Ramsay unlatched the door of the cage, opened it, and when he
did that the horse walked out.
He stayed very near to the boy, fearing to leave, and once or twice
bumped Ramsay with his shoulder. Ramsay studied the angry lake, and
looked back at the horse. Again he glanced out on the stormy water.
There was nothing else in sight. Those who, by one way or another, hoped
to reach shore were already lost in swirling sheets of rain. Ramsay bit
his lower lip so hard that he drew blood.
The men had either jumped, or else had merely ridden over the rail on a
wave that set the decks awash, but the horse could not do that. There
was real danger of his breaking a leg, or becoming otherwise injured, if
he tried. Ramsay turned and caught up the axe with which Captain Schultz
had stricken down the door.
The black horse crowded with him, afraid to be alone, and the boy had to
go around him to get back to the rail. The horse pushed close to him
again and Ramsay spoke soothingly, "Easy. Take it easy now."
He raised the axe and swung it, and felt its blade bite deeply into the
wooden rail. He swung again and again, until he had slashed through it,
then moved ten feet to one side, toward the rail's supporting post, and
cut it there. The severed section was whisked into the wave-tormented
lake as a match stick disappears in a whirlpool. Ramsay threw the axe
back onto the _Holter's_ sinking deck and stepped aside.
Get something that would float, Captain Schultz had said, and be sure
that it would keep him above water. But suddenly he could think of
nothing that would float. Wildly he cast about for a hatch cover or a
door. There was not one to be seen.
The _Holter_ made a sudden list that carried her starboard deck beneath
the lake. A wave surged across her. Even the little horse had unsteady
legs. Ramsay tried hard to overcome the terror within him.
Then, together, he and the little horse were in the lake. He threw wild
arms about the animal's neck, and a huge wave overwhelmed them. Gasping,
he arose.
The lake was wilder and fiercer and colder than he had thought it could
be. Every nerve and muscle in his body seemed chilled, so that he was
barely able to move. Another wave washed in, over both the little black
horse and himself, and for a moment they were deep beneath the churning
waters. They broke onto the surface, Ramsay with both hands entwined in
the horse's mane, and the horse turned to look at him.
There was uncertainty in the animal's eyes, and fright, but no terror.
The little horse knew his own power, and the fact that a human being
stayed with him gave him confidence in that strength.
Ramsay spoke reassuringly. "We're all right. We'll do all right, Black.
Let's get out of it."
The words were a tonic, the inspiration the horse needed. The next time
a wave rolled in, he did not try to fight it. Rather, he rose with it,
swimming strongly. He had adjusted himself to many situations, now he
met this one without panic. An intelligent beast, he had long ago
learned that every crisis must be met with intelligence.
Ramsay stayed easily beside him, keeping just enough weight on the
swimming animal to hold his own head above water and doing nothing that
would interfere with the furious fight the horse was waging to keep from
drowning.
The lake was indeed cold, colder than any other water the boy had ever
known, and he had to exercise every particle of his mind and will just
to cling to the horse. The wind blew furiously, and sluicing rain poured
down. Then the rain dwindled away and heavy mist settled in. Ramsay knew
a moment's panic.
It was impossible to see more than a few feet or to tell which way the
shore lay. The lake was huge, and should they be heading towards the
Michigan shore, they would never get there. Ramsay tried to remember all
he had ever known of wind and drift and currents on Lake Michigan, and
discovered that he could remember nothing. Any direction at all could be
north and he was unable to orient himself, but he controlled the rising
panic. It would do no good at all to lose his head.
The wind seemed to be dying, and the waves lessening. Ramsay kept his
hold on the little horse's mane. He saw a floating object pass and tried
to catch it, but when he did so he almost lost his hold on the horse.
Kicking hard to catch up, he twined both hands in the horse's mane and
tightened them there.
Then he felt a rebirth of confidence. Already they had been in the lake
for a long, long time and he had been able to hold his own. It was
impossible to get much colder, or more numb, than he already was and he
could still hang on. Besides, the horse seemed to know where he was
going.
He swam strongly, and apparently he was swimming straight. At any rate,
there was no evidence that he was traveling in circles or choosing an
erratic course. Ramsay had been told that animals have an instinct
compared to which the most sensitive human's is coarse and blunted and
maybe that was true. Maybe the horse did know where it was going.
Now that the waves were not rising so high, the horse swam faster. The
wind died almost completely, so that the lake's surface was merely
ruffled, and Ramsay felt a mounting confidence in his ability to live
through this. In the overcast a gull cried, and things had started going
wrong with the _Holter_ when the gulls left it. Now they were back.
Probably they, too, had known of the approaching storm and had flown to
safety off the lake.
The swimmers broke out of the mist and Ramsay saw the beach.
It was about a hundred yards away, a sand beach behind which a rocky
cliff rose. This wore a crest of evergreens, and its face was spotted
here and there with smaller trees. A cloud of white gulls screamed into
the air as Ramsay and the horse approached.
They reached the shallows, and the little horse's back emerged from the
water like that of some suddenly appearing sea monster. Ramsay let go
his hold on the animal's mane and swam. Then, coming to waist-high water
in which he could wade, he splashed toward the beach.
The wind had died, but waves still pounded the beach and it was very
cold. The near borders of this wild lake, Ramsay decided, probably never
warmed up. With an immense body of cold water lapping them, they were
perpetually chilled.
While the little horse looked gravely on, Ramsay stripped his clothing
off, wrung it out, and put the wet garments back on. The horse crowded
very close, as though he were afraid to go away. He nibbled Ramsay with
his lips. As soon as the boy moved, he moved with him.
He stayed very near as Ramsay walked up the beach, a stretch of
driftwood-spotted sand that varied from sixty to two hundred feet in
width and reached clear back to the rising bluff. A belt of wet sand
showed where the lake had crawled up onto the beach and fallen back.
The boy stopped suddenly, and the little horse stopped with him. Just
ahead, in the belt of wet sand which the highest waves had washed, lay
two tumbled figures. The little horse tossed his head uneasily, not
liking this at all, and Ramsay felt a cold lump rise in his throat. He
advanced at a slow walk and, after some hesitation, the horse trotted to
catch up with him. Ramsay stopped again.
The two drowned people were Captain Schultz of the _Holter_ and the deck
hand who had wished so fervently that he was somewhere else. Ramsay
cleared the lump in his throat, and was struck by the notion that at
last the deck hand had gone somewhere else. Then the black horse raised
his head and nickered, and the boy looked around to see a man on a
spotted black-and-white horse riding toward him.
He rode at full trot, the reins hanging loosely around his mount's
throat, and he wore an outlandish sort of affected cowboy's hat pulled
low over his eyes. His features were heavy, and would be flabby when he
had aged a few more years. Blue jeans clung tightly around his legs, and
straight black hair lay thick on his head. As he rode, he leveled a
heavy pistol.
"Go on! Beat it!"
"But ..."
"This is my find! I said beat it!"
The pistol roared, and a heavy ball buried itself in the sand at
Ramsay's feet. The boy felt a quick anger and a disinclination to obey
the order to leave. He took a step toward the horseman, knowing that he
would need a few seconds to re-load his pistol. But almost by magic
another pistol appeared in the man's hand and he leveled it steadily.
"Your last warnin'. Go on!"
Ramsay shrugged, and the black horse followed him as he walked on. This
was indeed a strange land, where men were willing to fight for the
possession of corpses. What did the horseman want with them? The loot
they might have in their pockets? Perhaps, but that seemed very
unlikely. Captain Schultz was not the type of person who would carry a
great deal of money in his pockets, and certainly the deck hand wouldn't
have enough to bother about. But obviously the horseman wanted the two
bodies.
Ramsay walked on up the sand beach. Gulls rose protestingly as he came
in sight, and flocks of ducks scudded across the water. A pair of Canada
Geese hissed at him as he passed. They were guarding a nest and they
were ready to fight for it. Ramsay gave them a wide berth and the horse
walked faithfully beside him.
The afternoon was half-spent when Ramsay smelled wood smoke. He
quickened his pace, but remained cautious. This was a wild land, with no
part of it wilder than this lonely Lake Michigan Beach, and there was
never any certainty as to just what anyone would find or how he would be
received. Nevertheless, if these people were friendly, other humans
would be welcome. Ramsay was both hungry and tired to the point of
exhaustion. He fingered the two dollars in his pocket. He could pay his
way. He rounded a long, forested nose of land where the bluff cut the
sand beach to a narrow five feet and looked out on a peaceful bay.
The bluff gave way to gently rising, treeless hills. A rail fence hemmed
part of them in, and black-and-white cattle grazed inside the fence. A
stone house, of Dutch architecture, stood on a knoll that commanded a
view of the lake, and a suitable distance from it was a snug wooden
barn. A small lake, or large pond, separated from Lake Michigan by a
narrow neck of land, glowed like a blue sapphire. Chickens, ducks and
geese crowded noisily together in the barnyard, and a man with a wooden
pail in his hand came out of the barn door.
Ramsay walked forward, as first uncertainly and then very steadily. A
man might be afraid, but it was always to his advantage not to let the
enemy, if enemy this might be, know he was afraid. The man at the barn
door hesitated, and then stood still while the boy approached.
Ramsay greeted him pleasantly, "Hello."
"Hello."
The man was tall and supple, with a frank, open face and intelligent,
blue eyes. He was perhaps six years older than Ramsay and he spoke with
a Dutch accent. Ramsay said, "I was sailing up to Three Points on the
_Holter_. Now she's wrecked and I must walk...."
"The _Holter's_ wrecked?" the other broke in.
"Yes."
"Any drowned people on the beach?"
"Two, but a man on a black-and-white horse took them away from me at
pistol point." Ramsay knew a rising impatience. "Why the dickens should
he do that?"
The other grinned faintly. "You get money for watching 'em until they
can be brought in and buried proper, and money is not easy to come by.
If there's a man already watching these, that would be Joe Mannis. He
combs the beach night and day after storms, and he's got as much money
as most people. What can I do for you?"
"I'd like something to eat before I go on to Three Points."
"That we can give you," the farmer said. "Come."
When the horse would have followed them to the house, the Dutch farmer
looked quizzically at Ramsay. The boy grinned.
"He's not mine. He was on the _Holter_ and we swam ashore together.
Without him I might not have made it."
"Then he is yours," the farmer said. "By right of salvage he is yours.
But Marta, she wouldn't like a horse in the house."
"It's hardly the place for a horse," Ramsay agreed. "Can we leave him
here?"
"Yaah."
The farmer opened the barnyard gate and Ramsay walked in. The horse
followed willingly. Ramsay stepped out and shut the gate. He saw the
little horse, its head over the bars, watching him as he walked toward
the house.
It was a clean house, and a scrubbed and shiny one. Even the big flat
stone that served as a back doorstep had almost an antiseptic
cleanliness. The house was filled with the odors of freshly baked bread
and spice and canned jam and curing hams. Ramsay smiled at the slim,
pleasant girl who met them at the door.
"Marta," the farmer said, "this man was ship-wrecked and is to be our
guest for as long as he wants to stay. He is...?"
"Ramsay Cartou," Ramsay supplied.
"Yaah! Ramsay Cartou. I am Pieter Van Hooven and this is my wife,
Marta."
Ramsay made himself comfortable in the neat kitchen while Marta Van
Hooven hurried efficiently about, preparing a meal. There was baked
whitefish, venison, roasted goose, fluffy mashed potatoes, crisp salad,
billowy fresh rolls, delicious cheese and milk.
Ramsay ate until he could eat no more, then pushed himself away from the
table and smiled graciously at Marta Van Hooven. "That was good!" he
said feelingly.
"You ate so little."
Ramsay grinned, "Not more than enough to feed three good-sized horses.
You can really cook."
Pieter Van Hooven glowed at this compliment extended to his wife. He
filled and lighted a clay pipe, and puffed contentedly. "What are you
going to do now?" he asked Ramsay.
"I," Ramsay hesitated, "I'd like to pay for the meal."
Pieter Van Hooven smiled. "Forget that. You were our guest."
"How far is Three Points?"
"Six miles. Just stay on the beach."
"Reckon I'll go up there then. I've got a job waiting for me at the
tannery. By the way, do you have any use for that horse?"
"A good horse can always be used on a farm. But I won't take him. I'll
keep him, and you can have him any time you want." Pieter Van Hooven
looked queerly at Ramsay. "You sure you want to go to Three Points?"
"I've got a job there, and I need it."
"Then go, but remember that nobody starves in Wisconsin. Marta and me,
we got no money but we got everything else. You don't like it in Three
Points, you might come back here?"
"I'll be glad to," Ramsay said, a little puzzled.
"Then do that, my friend."
Well-fed and rested, Ramsay walked alone up the sandy beach. Stay on the
sand, Pieter Van Hooven had advised him, and he couldn't go wrong. Three
Points, the tannery town, was right on the lake. Two hours after he left
the Van Hoovens, Ramsay reached the village.
Three Points nestled snugly in a gap which, only recently, had been
hacked out of the hemlock forest. Many big trees still stood on the edge
of town, and some right in the center; and most of the houses were built
of hemlock logs. There were a few, evidently belonging to Three Points'
wealthier residents, that were massively built and patterned after the
New England style of architecture.
There was no mistaking the tannery; the smell would have guided one
there, even if the mountains of hemlock bark piled all about had not.
Ramsay entered the long, low, shed-like building, and a man working at a
steaming vat looked up curiously. Ramsay approached him with "Who's the
boss man around here?"
"I am," an unseen man said.
Ramsay whirled to look at the man who had spoken, and he came face to
face with Devil Chad.
CHAPTER THREE
_ON THE BEACH_
Ramsay felt an instant tension and a bristling anger, and he knew now
that he should have connected two incidents. The man who had written to
him and offered him a job in the Three Points tannery had signed his
name 'Devlin Chadbourne.' Devlin Chadbourne--Devil Chad--and Ramsay took
a backward step. Never before had he met a man so capable of arousing in
him a cordial dislike that was almost an urge to start fighting
immediately.
"Where's the _Holter_?" Devil Chad demanded.
"I sent her back to Milwaukee after Captain Schultz let me off here,"
Ramsay said sarcastically.
"Don't get smart with me, boy." Devil Chad glowered. "You was on the
_Holter_ when she sailed."
"Where were you?" Ramsay demanded.
"I'll ask the questions here!" Devil Chad's thick lips curled in an ugly
oblong. "Where's the _Holter_?"
"At the bottom of Lake Michigan!" Ramsay flared. "Captain Schultz and
one of your deck hands are lying drowned on the beach! I don't know
where the others are."
Devil Chad's glass balls of eyes glinted. His face twisted into a
horrible glare, and every inch of his big frame seemed to shrink and
swell with the rage that consumed him. "You mean to tell me," he
demanded furiously, "that all them hides was lost?"
"Men were lost," Ramsay pointed out.
"You mean to tell me," Devil Chad repeated, as though he had not heard
Ramsay, "that all them hides was lost?"
"Swim out and get 'em," Ramsay invited. "I'll show you the place where I
landed, and the _Holter_ can't be more than a couple of miles out in the
lake."
"What did Schultz do?" Devil Chad demanded.
"Drowned."
"You're pretty flip, boy," Devil Chad warned, "an' I don't put up with
flip people. You tell me what happened."
"Your greasy tub was carrying one third more than ever should have been
put on her, her equipment was no good, we ran into a storm and the
engines quit."
"All them hides lost." Devil Chad was overwhelmed by this personal
tragedy and could think of nothing else. "Couldn't you of done
somethin'?"
"It wasn't my ship and they weren't my hides. What are you going to do
for the families of the men who were lost?"
"Why should I do anything? They knew when they signed on that they was
runnin' risks." Devil Chad turned his unreadable eyes squarely on
Ramsay. "What do you want here?"
"Nothing."
"Ain't you the boy who wrote me from New York, an' asked me for a job?"
The man at the vat continued working and others stayed at their tasks,
but Ramsay was aware of a rippling under-current. There was an
uneasiness among the men, and a fear; and in spite of the fact that they
kept busy they turned covert eyes on Ramsay and Devil Chad. The boy felt
a flashing anger. Who was this man, and what was he, that so many others
could live in almost craven fear of him?
"If you are," Devil Chad continued, still holding Ramsay in the cage of
his eyes, "you can have the job but I hold back twenty-five cents a day
until them hides are paid for."
"Take your job!" Ramsay exploded, "and go plumb to the bottom of the
lake with it!"
"I warned you, boy," Devil Chad was talking softly now. "I warned you. I
don't put up with flip people, an' now I'm goin' to teach you the lesson
that I should of given you on the _Holter_."
"Why didn't you sail on the _Holter_?" Ramsay demanded.
Devil Chad made no answer. He was in a half-crouch, his huge head bent
to his chest and his fists knotted so tightly that the knuckles were
whitened. His shaggy hair tumbled forward on his forehead, and his eyes
still held no expression.
Ramsay raised his voice so all in the building could hear. "You filthy
pup! You lily-livered slug! You knew the _Holter_ was going to the
bottom some day! Even your deck hand knew it! You sent other men out to
die, but didn't risk yourself! You haven't got enough money to hire me
to work for you!"
Devil Chad was inching forward, his head still bent; and when he had
advanced a foot, he sprang. It was the rush of a bull, but not a
cumbersome bull. He flung out both arms, intending to crush Ramsay to
his chest and break his ribs. It was the only way Devil Chad knew how to
fight, but the boy knew other tricks.
When the bigger, heavier man launched his charge, Ramsay stood still. He
saw those massive stretched arms, and knew their purpose, but he did not
move until Devil Chad flung them out for his crushing embrace. Then, and
only then, did Ramsay act.
He flitted aside, balancing himself on the balls of his feet and
whirling even as he evaded the other's lunge. Like a snapping whip his
clenched right fist flicked in to deliver a stinging blow to the side of
his enemy's head. But the blow did little except spin Devil Chad around
and arouse a mighty bellow in the depths of his enormous chest.
Ramsay remained poised, alert for the next charge, and an almost grim
satisfaction drove other thoughts from his mind. He had not wanted this
fight and had not forced it, but within him there was a curious feeling
that it was fore-ordained, and now that it was here, he relished it.
Devil Chad was not a man. He was an animal who thought as an animal
thinks. Other men, other human beings, had lost their lives in his
overloaded, unseaworthy ship, and all this brute could think of was the
fact that he had lost his cargo.
Devil Chad's eyes, even in the heat of battle, remained opaque and
strangely without expression. It was only his face, like a rubber mask
expertly molded to form an expression of rage, that betrayed his fury.
He swung heavily, running forward even as he launched his blow, and
Ramsay ducked beneath it. He came up to land a hard left and a right on
Devil Chad's jaw.
He might as well have struck a granite boulder. Devil Chad did not even
flinch and the boy knew a moment's uncertainty. His enemy was a bull,
but bulls were felled with pole-axes, not with fists. Ramsay backed
lightly away.
All about now, knowing that Devil Chad was engrossed in the fight and
had no time for them, men had openly stopped work and were staring at
the battlers. On the faces of some was written incredulity. Some looked
on with delighted interest, and an expectant smile lighted the swarthy
features of a little Frenchman who had stopped moving cattle hides to
watch Ramsay weave away from Devil Chad. There was no man here who, in
some silent way, did not cheer the boy on, but there were none who
expected him to win. All knew their master.
Devil Chad rushed again, swinging his fists like pistons as he did so,
and again Ramsay side-stepped. He landed a fierce blow squarely on the
other's nose and was gratified to see a crimson stream of blood spout
forth to mingle darkly with his antagonist's black beard and mustache. A
cold uncertainty rose within Ramsay.
He had fought before, many times, and he had defeated his opponents and
had been defeated, but never before had he fought a man just like this
one. Devil Chad, apparently, was able to absorb an endless amount of
punishment with no effect whatever on himself. He was as tough as one of
the trees that grew on the outskirts of Three Points.
Ramsay risked a fleeting backward glance to see where he was going, and
edged away from the wall. He was breathing hard because of the
tremendous physical effort he had exerted, but he was far from exhausted
and he knew that, as long as he could keep the battle in the open, he
could avoid the other's charges. But the certainty that he could not win
this battle solidified. It seemed possible to pound Devil Chad all day
long without hurting him at all.
"Kill him!" an excited man shouted.
Devil Chad paused just long enough to locate and identify this rash
employee who dared encourage his enemy, and Ramsay felt a nausea in the
pit of his stomach. When the battle ended, no matter who won, at least
one man would have some explaining to do and probably a beating to take.
The boy kept his eyes on Devil Chad, anticipating the other's next move.
Then he tripped over an unseen and unsuspected block of wood and fell
backward.
Even as he fell he tried to pick himself up and scoot out of the way.
But a bludgeon, the toe of Devil Chad's heavy boot, collided soddenly
with his ribs and a sickening pain shot through his entire body. He
turned, snatching furiously at the boot as it was raised again and still
trying to wriggle away. His arm flipped convulsively as Devil Chad
kicked him squarely on the wrist, and he felt a creeping numbness that
began there and spread to his shoulder.
He rolled to escape his tormentor, rolled again, and struggled to his
hands and knees. Vaguely, as though he were viewing it in some fantastic
dream, he saw the big black boot flying at his head. The boot was a huge
thing and so clearly-outlined that Ramsay saw every tiny wrinkle in it.
He was aware of the stitching where the ponderous sole joined the upper
leather, and he knew that he must get away. But that was a vague and
misty thought, one he seemed unable to carry farther. A mighty rage
flared within him.
No more than a split second elapsed before the boot struck, but it
seemed like hours. Ramsay was aware of the fact that his two silver
dollars, his last money, rolled out of his pockets and across the
tannery's floor. A thousand colored lights danced in his head, and then
he was back on the lake.
He had loved the lake, he remembered, and there was something
wonderfully cool and refreshing about returning to it. A small boat with
a crazy Dutch fisherman at her tiller danced out of the lake's gray
stretches and sported gracefully before him. On top of the mast was a
tame sea gull that clicked his mandibles and fluttered his wings. Ramsay
even saw the boat's name written in fine script across her bows. She was
the _Spray_.
The _Spray_ hove to very close to Ramsay, and her skipper looked at him.
He was a tall man, very powerful, and he was blond and easily laughing.
There was no grimness about him, only grace and light spirit. Several
men had gone sailing on a raft made of cattle hides, he told Ramsay, and
they were in great trouble out on the lake. Did Ramsay care to go with
him and help bring the unfortunates safely back? The sea gull, of
course, would help too.
When Ramsay pretended not to hear, the crazy Dutch fisherman obligingly
repeated his information. Again Ramsay pretended not to hear; whereupon
the Dutch fisherman caught up a wooden bucket, dipped it into the lake
and showered him with ice-cold water. He held the bucket waist-high, as
though wondering whether more water was necessary, and the twinkle
remained in his eyes and the laugh on his lips. It was impossible to be
angry with him. Laughing back, Ramsay agreed to go help the foolish men
who had sailed away on the cattle hides.
Then he awakened, to find a woman bathing his face with cold water.
For a moment she was a distorted picture, a hazy vision that advanced
toward him and retreated far away. Again Ramsay almost lost himself in
the dim world into which Devil Chad's boots had kicked him. The cold
cloth on his face brought him back, and he opened his eyes to see the
woman very clearly.
She was small, with a worn face, so weary from endless toil that the
skin was drawn tightly over it. But her eyes were the brownest, the
softest and the gentlest Ramsay had ever seen. Black hair was combed
smoothly back on her head and caught in a knot at the base of her neck.
Again she laid the cold cloth on his face, and the boy closed his eyes
at the luxury of such a thing. Then he spoke, "Where am I?"
"_Sh-h._ Don't try to talk, M'sieu."
The woman, unmistakably French, rose and went into another room. Ramsay
looked about him.
The room in which he lay was walled with rough, unplaned boards, and the
ceiling was made of the same material. Only the floor, scrubbed so
carefully that it glowed like a polished diamond, was of smooth boards.
Light was admitted by a single small pane of glass, and the light
reflected on a crucifix that hung on the far wall. There were a few
pictures, yellow with age, a table over which a deer skin was gracefully
draped, and a candle-holder with a half-burned candle. Everything was
neat and spotlessly clean.
The woman came back bearing a hollowed-out gourd. She passed an arm
around Ramsay's shoulders--despite her small size she was surprisingly
strong--and assisted him to a half-sitting position. She held the gourd
to his lips.
Ramsay drank deeply, and fell back sputtering. The gourd was
partly-filled with cold water and partly with a whisky, so strong and
violent that it burned his mouth and lips. He lay blinking, while tears
welled in his eyes and flowed down his cheeks. The whisky, doubtless
homemade, was strong enough to choke a horse. But, after a half-minute,
it made itself felt. A warm glow spread from the roots of Ramsay's hair
to the tips of his toes. Some of his many aches and pains lessened.
"More?" the woman inquired softly.
"Uh ... No--no thank you."
She put the gourd on the table and came over to lay a hand on his
forehead. It was a calloused and work-hardened hand, but so gentle was
she that her caress was scarcely a feather's touch. Ramsay smiled his
thanks.
"How did I get here?" he asked again.
"My man, Pierre LeDou, he brought you. But now you must rest, M'sieu,
and try to sleep. Badly have you been hurt."
The woman drew an exquisite, hand-sewn lace curtain, an incongruous
thing in these rough surroundings, over the window, and semi-gloom
reigned in the room. She tiptoed out, closing the door behind her, and
Ramsay was left alone with his thoughts.
That mighty rage mounted within him again. He had been fighting with
Devil Chad, he remembered, and not doing badly until he fell over some
unseen object. Then he had been kicked into--into this. Experimentally
Ramsay tried to move his legs, and found that he could do so. He
clenched and unclenched his fists, and there in the half-light of an
unknown room, in a stranger's house, he made a solemn vow. One day, no
matter what else happened, he and Devil Chad would meet again. Devil
Chad would pay, in full, for every twinge Ramsay suffered. In that
moment Ramsay knew that he was not afraid.
His burning anger became tempered with pleasant wonder. This was a harsh
land, but there was room for tenderness. He was a stranger and had been
in Three Points only long enough to get himself kicked into
insensibility, but there were those in Three Points who knew compassion
and friendship. Otherwise, he would not now be lying in some unknown
man's house and being ministered to by that man's wife. Pierre--Ramsay
strove to recall the last name and could not. He fell into a quiet
slumber.
The next time he awakened, the candle on his table was burning and his
host--vaguely Ramsay remembered seeing him move hides about the
tannery--was standing near. Like his wife, he was small and gentle, with
a manner that belied the fierce little black mustache clinging to his
upper lip. He was too small and gentle, Ramsay thought, ever to fit
into a town such as Three Points. But certainly he was kind and good. He
smiled, revealing flashing white teeth, and when he did Ramsay
remembered the name, Pierre LeDou.
"How do you feel?" he asked briskly.
"Better." Ramsay grinned.
"He beat you," Pierre LeDou said. "_Sacre!_ But he beat you!" The little
man's eyes roved about the room, as though seeking the solution to a
problem which he must solve, and Ramsay knew that he, too, hated Devil
Chad. "He kicked you!" Pierre LeDou said.
"I know, and some day I'll pay him back for that."
Interest brightened in the little Frenchman's eyes. "You think so,
M'sieu--M'sieu ..."
"Cartou," Ramsay said. "Ramsay Cartou. And I will not kill anybody
unless I have to. But one day this Devil Chad will pay, ten times over,
for everything he did to me."
"He is very hard man." Pierre LeDou sighed.
"So am I!" Ramsay gritted, and again anger rose within him. "Why should
so many people tremble in their boots when he comes around?"
Pierre LeDou shrugged eloquently. "The job. A man has to have the job."
"I see. And Devil Chad controls 'the job'?"
"Not all," Pierre LeDou explained. "He does not walk so freely where the
fishermen and farmers are."
"I'm beginning to like these fishermen and farmers more and more."
"They are nice," Pierre agreed, "but wild. Especially the fishermen.
Oh, so wild! Out in the lake they go, afraid of nothing; but those that
do not drown return with multitudes of fish."
"Do many drown?"
"Very many, but you cannot kill a fisherman. They say that the lake
sends back two for every one it takes, and maybe that is so. At any
rate, when a fisherman drowns, two more always appear. I would go
fishing myself were it not that I am afraid. Are you hungry, M'sieu?"
"Yes," Ramsay answered frankly.
"Then I will get you something to eat."
Pierre LeDou disappeared. Ramsay lay back on the bed to think. Now this
half-wild, half-tame country into which he had come was assuming a
definite pattern. Some, like Pierre LeDou, had been attracted by the
endless wealth offered, and had found only a back-breaking job with
Devil Chad or his counterpart. Others, and Ramsay thought of Hans Van
Doorst and Pieter Van Hooven, were finding wealth.
It was not wealth that could be measured in terms of money; probably the
crazy Dutch fisherman and Pieter Van Hooven had little money, but just
the same it was wealth. Rather than toil meekly for someone else and
obey a master's every wish, they had chosen to discover for themselves
the true richness of this endlessly rich land and they were discovering
it. So some were afraid and some were not; and those who were not seemed
to enjoy life at its fullest. And, as usual, there was the arrogant
overlord, Devil Chad, who wanted everything for himself and who would
take it if he could. He did not care what he did or whom he killed, as
long as he got what he wanted.
Pierre LeDou came back, bearing a bowl on a wooden platter. Ramsay
sniffed hungrily. The bowl was old and cracked, but like everything else
in the house it was scrupulously clean, and the odors wafted from it
would tempt the appetite of a dying man. Pierre put the bowl and a
wooden spoon down where Ramsay could reach them, and Ramsay saw a meat
stew in which fluffy dumplings floated.
"It is not much," the little Frenchman apologized. "Venison stew with
dumplings, and that is all. Would you like some spirits to go with it?"
"Uh!" Ramsay remembered the fiery liquor. "No thanks. I would like some
water."
"I can offer you milk."
"That will be fine."
Pierre disappeared, and returned with a bowl of milk and a beaker of the
strong whisky. He gave the bowl to Ramsay and held the whisky aloft.
"Your health, M'sieu," he said.
He drained the beaker without even quivering, and Ramsay suppressed a
shudder. Dipping the spoon in his venison stew, he tasted it. It was
rich, with all the expertness of French cuisine behind it, and
delicious. Ramsay took a chunk of venison in his mouth and chewed it
with relish. Venison, fish and whatever else they could get out of the
country doubtless meant much to the people who lived here.
"How long have you worked in the tannery?" he asked Pierre.
"Five years," the little Frenchman said. "Five long years. I shall work
there much longer if God is kind."
"May He always be kind to you!" Ramsay said feelingly.
"My thanks to you, M'sieu Ramsay. And now, with your permission, I shall
retire. I suggest that you sleep, for you look very weary. Should you
want anything you have only to call."
Ramsay fell into a restful slumber from which he was awakened by the
sound of people stirring. The early morning sun, just rising, caressed
the curtained window softly and a sleepy bird twittered outside the
window. There was the sound of lifted stove lids and of people stirring.
Ramsay dozed off, then sprang guiltily awake and jumped out of bed.
He felt good, with only an occasional twinge of pain here and there.
Hastily he pulled on his trousers and shirt, laced his shoes and
smoothed his rumpled hair with his hand. When he had made himself as
presentable as he could, he went into the other room.
Though the hour was still early and the sun not yet fairly up, Pierre
LeDou had already left for his work in the tannery. His pleasant wife
was pouring hot water from a pan on the stove into a big wooden bowl,
evidently the receptacle in which dishes were washed. She turned around.
"Good morning!" Ramsay said cheerfully.
"Good morning, M'sieu." Then she cautioned him. "Should you be out of
bed?"
"I feel fine." Ramsay grinned. "Strong as a bull and twice as hungry."
"Then I will prepare you something to eat. If M'sieu cares to do so, he
may wash just outside the door."
"Thanks."
Ramsay went out the door. To one side, in front of the house, there was
a big wooden bowl and two wooden pails filled with water. A well-worn
trail threading away from the door obviously led to a well or spring.
Hanging on a wooden peg driven into a hole, drilled in the cabin's wall,
were a clean towel and washcloth. Even the door's hinges, cleverly
carved pins that turned on holes drilled into wooden blocks attached to
the cabin's wall, were wood. Evidently, in this country, wood
substituted for metal.
Ramsay filled the bowl with water, washed himself and went back into the
cabin. Pierre LeDou's wife was bending over a skillet from which came
the smell of frying fish. Ramsay sniffed hungrily, and licked his lips.
She turned the fish, let it cook a little while longer, and put it on
the table, along with feather-light biscuits, butter and cold milk.
Ramsay ate hungrily, but tried to curb his appetite so he would also eat
decently, and as he ate he talked.
"Why," he asked Pierre LeDou's wife, "did your husband bring me here?"
"You were hurt and needed help," she said simply.
In sudden haste Ramsay felt his pocket, and discovered that the two
silver dollars were gone. He remembered that he had lost them while he
fought with Devil Chad, and a flood of embarrassment almost overwhelmed
him.
"I--I have no money to pay you," he said awkwardly.
For the first time she looked reprovingly at him. "We did not ask for
money, M'sieu. One does not."
Ramsay knew another awkward moment and a little shame. "It is very good
of you," he said.
She said, "One does not neglect a fellow human."
Ramsay finished eating and pushed his dishes back. Pierre LeDou's wife,
who had already finished washing the rest of the dishes, put Ramsay's in
the dish water and left them there. She smiled at him. "It would be well
if you rested."
"I'm not tired. Really I'm not."
"You should rest. Badly were you hurt."
"Let me sit here a while."
"As long as you sit."
She went to a cupboard and took from it a big ball of strong linen
thread. From the table she caught up a small board. Wrapping the thread
twice around the board, she knotted it. Slipping the thread from the
board, she hung the loop she had made on a wooden peg and made a new
loop. Her hands flew so swiftly that in a few moments she had seventeen
of the meshes, all joined together.
"What are you doing?" Ramsay inquired interestedly.
"Making a gill net," she explained. "It was ordered by Baptiste LeClair,
a fisherman, and is to have a four and a half-inch mesh. So we use a
mesh board that is exactly two and a quarter inches wide and wrap the
thread twice around. Now I have seventeen. See?"
"I see."
She strung the seventeen meshes on a wooden rod, placed two chairs far
enough apart so that the meshes stretched, tied the rod to them and
began knitting on the net she had started. "The net is to be seventeen
meshes, or seventy-six and one-half inches, wide. Now I lengthen it."
Under the boy's interested eyes the gill net grew swiftly, and as it
lengthened she wrapped it around the rod. Ramsay watched every move.
"How long will it be?" he queried.
"One net," she told him, "is about two hundred and fifty feet long. But
usually several are tied together to form a box of nets. A box is about
fourteen hundred feet."
"Isn't that a lot?"
She smiled. "A crew of three good men, like Hans Van Doorst or Baptiste
LeClair, with a good Mackinaw boat can handle two boxes."
"Could you make this net longer if you wished to?"
"Oh, yes. It could be many miles long. Two hundred and fifty feet is a
good length for one net because, if it is torn by strong water or heavy
fish, it may be untied and repaired while the rest may still be used."
"What else must you do?"
"After the net is two hundred and fifty feet long, I will use fifteen-
or sixteen-thread twine through from three to six meshes on the outer
edge. This, in turn, will be tied to ninety-thread twine which extends
the full length."
Ramsay was amazed at the way this quiet little woman reeled off these
figures, as though she were reciting a well-learned lesson. But he
wanted to know even more. "How do they set such a net?"
"The fishermen gather small, flat stones, about three to the pound, and
cut a groove around them so that they can be suspended from a rope.
These are called sinkers, and are tied to the net about nine feet apart.
For floats they use cedar blocks, about two feet long by one-quarter of
an inch thick and an inch and a quarter wide. They bore a small hole
one inch from the end, then split the block to the bored hole. The
floats--and the number they use depends on the depth to which they sink
the net--are pushed over the ninety-thread twine."
"Let me try!" Ramsay was beginning to feel the effects of idleness and
wanted action.
"But of course, M'sieu."
Ramsay took the mesh board in his hand and, as he had seen her do,
wrapped the thread twice around it. But, though it had looked simple
when she did it, there was a distinct knack to doing it right. The mesh
board slipped from his fingers and the twine unwound. Madame LeDou
laughed. "Let me show you."
Patiently, carefully, she guided his fingers through the knitting of a
mesh, then another and a third and fourth. Ramsay felt a rising elation.
He had liked the _Spray_ when he saw her and now he liked this. Fishing,
from the making of the nets to setting them, seemed more than ever a
craft that was almost an art. He knitted a row of meshes across the gill
net, and happily surveyed his work.
At the same time he remained aware of the fact that she could knit three
times as fast as he. Ramsay thrust his tongue into his cheek and grimly
continued at his work.
After an hour Madame LeDou said soberly, "You do right well, M'sieu. But
should you not rest now?"
Ramsay said, "This is fun."
"It is well that you enjoy yourself. Would you consider it uncivil if I
left you for a while?"
"Please do what you must."
She left, and Ramsay continued to work on the net. As he did, his skill
improved. Though he was still unable to knit as swiftly as Madame LeDou,
he could make a good net. And there was a feel, a tension, to the
thread. Within itself the thread had life and being. It was supple,
strong and would not fail a fisherman who depended upon it.
Madame LeDou returned, smiled at him and went unobtrusively about the
task of preparing a lunch. So absorbed was he in his net-making that he
scarcely tasted the food. All afternoon he worked on the net.
Madame LeDou said approvingly, "You make a good net, M'sieu. You have
knitted almost four pounds of thread into this one. The most skilled
net-makers, those who have had years of experience, cannot knit more
than six or seven pounds in one day."
Twilight shadows were lengthening when Pierre LeDou returned. The little
man, as always, was courteous. But behind his inherited Gallic grace and
manners lay a troubled under-current. Pierre spoke in rapid French to
his wife, and she turned worried eyes on their guest. Ramsay stopped
knitting the net.
All afternoon there had been growing upon him an awareness that he could
not continue indefinitely to accept the LeDou's hospitality, and now he
knew that he must go. The pattern had definite shape, and the reason
behind Pierre's uneasiness was not hard to fathom. Devil Chad was the
ruler, and Devil Chad must rule. Who harbored his enemy must be his
enemy, and Pierre LeDou needed the job in the tannery. Should he lose
it, the LeDous could not live.
With an air of spontaneity, anxious not to cause his host and hostess
any embarrassment, Ramsay rose and smiled. "It has been a most enjoyable
stay at your home," he said. "But of course it cannot continue. I have
work to find. If you will be kind enough to shelter me again tonight, I
will go tomorrow, and I shall never forget the LeDous."
CHAPTER FOUR
_TROUBLE FOR THE_ SPRAY
Early the next morning, when Pierre departed for work, Ramsay bade
farewell to Madame LeDou and left their house with his kind host. He did
so with a little reluctance, now that all his money was gone and the
future loomed more uncertainly than ever. At the same time there was
about him a rising eagerness and an unfulfilled expectation.
It seemed to him that, since swimming ashore from the sinking _Holter_,
he had ceased to be a boy and had become a man. And a man must know that
all desirable things had their undesirable aspects. This country was
wonderful. If, to stay in it, he must come to grips with other men--men
as strong and as cruel as Devil Chad--and with nature too, Ramsay felt
himself willing to do that.
As soon as the two were fifty yards from the LeDou home he purposely
dropped behind Pierre and leaned against a huge hemlock until the little
man was out of sight. Pierre had said nothing and Ramsay had not asked,
but the latter knew Devil Chad had told the Frenchman that, if he valued
his job in the tannery, he must no longer shelter Ramsay. The boy had
no wish to further embarrass his host or to jeopardize his job by being
seen with him. Therefore he leaned against the tree until Pierre had had
time to reach and enter the tannery.
Slowly Ramsay left his tree and walked down the same path that Pierre
had followed. Badly as he needed a job, it was useless to try to get one
in the tannery. He slowed his pace even more as he walked past the
building. He had been beaten by Devil Chad, and he might be beaten a
second time should they fight again; but he was not afraid to try. His
body had been hurt, but not his courage.
Almost insolently Ramsay stopped where he could be seen from the
tannery's open door, and waited there. He was aware of curious,
half-embarrassed glances from men hurrying into the place, and then they
avoided looking at him. Finally a man stopped. He spoke to a man who
halted beside him.
"All right, Jules. Get in an' start to work."
He was a straw boss or foreman, Ramsay decided, and his voice betrayed
his New England forebears. An older man, with hair completely gray, like
all the rest he was wrinkled and weathered. Physically he was lean and
tough, but he did not seem belligerent or even unkind. When the last
worker had entered the tannery, he turned to Ramsay.
"You needn't be afraid, son. Mr. Chadbourne went to Milwaukee last
night."
"I'm not afraid. I was just wondering if he wouldn't come out for a
second start."
"Look, son," the other's air was that of an older and wiser person
trying to reason with an impetuous boy, "you haven't got a chance. The
best thing you can do is get out of town before Mr. Chadbourne comes
back."
"Maybe I like this town."
"You can only cause trouble by staying here."
"I've been in trouble before, too."
The older man shrugged, as though he had discharged his full
responsibility in warning Ramsay, and said, "It's your funeral, my boy.
Stay away from the tannery."
"You needn't worry."
Ramsay strolled on down the dusty street, and in spite of himself he was
a little relieved. If Devil Chad had gone to Milwaukee, probably to
arrange for another shipload of hides, it was unlikely that he would be
back before night at the earliest. Ramsay would not have to fight again
today; presumably he was free to do as he pleased without any fear of
interruption. He thrust his hands into empty pockets and, to cheer
himself up, started to whistle.
A fat Indian, dressed in ragged trousers, which some white man had
thrown out, and an equally-tattered black coat which he could not button
across his immense, naked stomach, grinned at him. Ramsay grinned back
and winked. His friends in New York had been awe-stricken at the very
thought of venturing into the wild Midwest where, they thought, scalping
parties occurred every few hours and no white man was safe from the
savages. Ramsay had enjoyed himself by elaborating on the part he would
play when such a war party came along. But he had discovered for
himself, before he left Chicago, that the Indians in this section of
Wisconsin were harmless. When they could they sold bead work and
basketry to the settlers and they were not above stealing. But they were
not warlike.
Ramsay strode past another building, a big one with two separate floors
and an attic. Its chimney belched smoke, and from within came the whine
of saws and other machinery. In front of the building were stacked a
great number of barrels, made of white pine and with hoops formed from
the black ash tree. Ramsay hesitated a moment and entered.
Three Points was obviously a raw frontier town, but definitely it was
not as raw as Ramsay had expected it to be. Obviously there was at least
one industrial plant in addition to the tannery. It seemed to be a
cooper's shop, engaged in the production of barrels, and it might hold a
job for him. He stopped just inside the door, trying to adjust his ears
to the scream of a big circular saw that was powered by a steam engine.
Beyond were lathes and various other machines, and a great many wooden
pails were piled against the far wall. This factory, then, made both
barrels and pails.
Presently a middle-aged man, with the neatest clothing Ramsay had yet
seen in Three Points, came out of an office and walked toward him. He
shouted to make himself heard above the screaming saw, "Yes?"
"Are you the manager here?" Ramsay shouted back.
"Yes."
"Need any men?"
"What?"
Ramsay grinned faintly. The factory, if not bedlam, was close to it. It
was incredible that anyone at all could carry on an intelligent, or
even an intelligible, conversation inside it. Ramsay shouted, "Let's go
outside!"
The other followed him out, and far enough from the door so they could
hear each other. Ramsay turned to his companion, "My name's Ramsay
Cartou and I'm looking for a job. Do you have any to offer?"
The manager looked soberly at Ramsay's battered face, then with the toe
of his shoe he began tracing a circle in the dirt. He hesitated. Then,
"I'm afraid not."
Ramsay felt a stirring anger. Definitely there was more work in Three
Points than there were men to do it. The town had need of strong
workers. For a moment he looked steadily at the manager, who looked
away. Then he swallowed and tried a new tack, "What do you do with all
the barrels?"
"Most of them go to fishermen who use them to ship their catches to
Chicago. The pails are shipped by boat to wherever there is a market for
them."
"And you can't give me a job?"
"That's right."
"Why?" Ramsay challenged.
"We--we have a full crew."
"I see. Now will you answer one question?"
"Certainly."
"Does 'Mister' Chadbourne own this place too?"
"He has a financial interest ..." The other stopped short. "See here,
young man! I have told you that I cannot offer you a job and that should
be sufficient!"
"I just wanted to know why," Ramsay said.
He turned and walked away from the cooper's shop. His chin was high,
and anger seethed within him. Devil Chad, apparently, owned most of
Three Points and a lot of other things between that and Milwaukee. If
there was an opportunity to earn a dollar, honest or dishonest, Devil
Chad was seizing that opportunity. Obviously the manager of the cooper's
shop had heard of his fight with Ramsay--in a small community like this
everyone would have heard of it--and was afraid to give him a job.
Ramsay resumed his tuneless whistling.
Plainly he was going to get nowhere in Three Points. But definitely he
had no intention of running away with his tail between his legs, like a
whipped puppy. He liked this lakeshore country and he intended to stay
in it. If he had to fight to do that, then he would fight.
Between the rugged trunks of tall hemlock trees he caught a glimpse of
the lake, sparkling blue in the sunshine and gently ruffled by a soft
south wind. He turned his steps toward it, and now he walked eagerly.
The lake was magic, a world in itself which never had been tamed and
never would be tamed. He shivered ecstatically. This was what he had
come west to find. Devil Chad and his tannery, the town of Three Points,
and even Milwaukee paled into nothingness when compared to the lake. He
broke from the last trees and saw Lake Michigan clearly.
A heavy wooden pier extended out onto it, and a sailing vessel was tied
up at one side. Ramsay read her name. She was the _Brilliant_, from
Ludington, Michigan, and a line of men were toiling up a gangplank with
heavy bags which they were stacking on the pier. On the pier's other
side a steamer, a side-wheeler like the _Holter_, was loading leather
from Devil Chad's tannery. She was the _Jackson_, a freighter that
carried assorted cargoes between Three Points, Milwaukee and Chicago.
Ramsay strolled out on the pier and brightened when the cold lake air
struck his face. It was impossible to be on the lake, or near it, and
feel stolid or dull. It provided its own freshness, and Ramsay thought
it also furnished a constant inspiration. He watched the sweating men
continue to bring loaded bags up from the sailing vessel and approached
near enough to ask a burly deck hand, "What's this cargo?"
The man looked surlily at him. "What's it look like?"
"Diamonds." Ramsay grinned.
"Well, it ain't. It's salt."
"What the blazes will anyone do with so much salt?"
"Eat it," the deck hand grunted. "People hereabouts like salt." Then he,
too, grinned. "Naw, it's for fishermen. They got to have somethin' to
salt their catches in."
"Oh. I see."
Ramsay added this bit of information to the lore he had already
gathered. Obviously fishing consisted of more than just catching fish.
Actually taking the fish, of course, was the most exciting and romantic
part. But the fishermen could not ply their trade at all without women
like Madame LeDou who made their nets, a shop like the Three Points'
cooper's shop which provided the barrels into which the fish were
packed, or vessels like the _Brilliant_ which brought salt that kept the
fish from spoiling.
Ramsay stayed on the pier until the _Brilliant_ was unloaded, and
licked his lips while he watched her crew eating thick sandwiches. They
took a whole loaf of bread, sliced it lengthwise, packed the center with
meat, cheese, fish and anything else they could lay their hands on, and,
according to their taste, washed it down with cold lake water or beakers
of whisky. Ramsay looked away.
Madame LeDou had provided him with a substantial breakfast, but this was
an invigorating country wherein one soon became hungry again. Ramsay
patted his empty stomach.
Probably Madame LeDou would give him something to eat should he go back
there, but he had already posed enough problems for the LeDous. Besides,
he did not like the idea of asking for food. He left the pier to walk
past the Lake House, Three Points' only hotel. Savory odors of cooking
food wafted to his nostrils and made him drool. He walked past the Lake
House, then turned to walk back. He trotted up the steps and sat down at
a table spread with a white cloth.
A hard-eyed woman, wearing a brown dress over which she had tied a neat
white apron, came up to him. Ramsay leaned back. He had decided to make
his play, and he might as well play it to the end.
"What does the menu offer?" he asked almost haughtily.
"Whitefish at fifteen cents, venison at fifteen cents, a boiled dinner
at ten cents."
"What? No steak?"
"The steak dinner," the woman said, "costs thirty cents. With it you get
potatoes, coffee, salad and apple pie."
"Bring it to me," Ramsay said. "And please be prompt. My time is
valuable."
"As soon as possible," the woman said.
Ramsay relaxed in his chair. A half-hour later the waitress brought him
a broiled sirloin, so big that it overflowed the platter on which it
rested. There were crisp fried potatoes, coffee--a rare beverage in this
country--cream, a salad and a huge wedge of apple pie. Ramsay ate
hungrily, then the waitress approached him.
"Will you pay now?"
"It is a lot," said Ramsay, who could not have swallowed another crust,
"to pay for such a puny meal."
"I told you the price before you ordered."
"It doesn't matter," Ramsay waved a languid hand. "Especially since I
have no money. What do we do now?"
Ramsay stood in the kitchen of the Lake House, and by the light of an
oil lamp piled the last of what had been a mountain of dishes, into warm
water. There must, he thought, have been thousands of them, but there
were only a few more and he dropped one of those. Instantly the woman
who had served him popped into the kitchen.
"Must you be so clumsy?"
"It is the only dish I have broken out of all I have washed," Ramsay
said. "Don't you think I have paid off my dinner by this time?"
"You knew the price before you ordered."
"The way you've had me working since, I earned the whole cow. Haven't I
repaid you, with perhaps a bonus of a sandwich for supper?"
"Sit down, kid," the woman said gruffly.
She brought him a sandwich, huge slices of fluffy homemade bread between
which thick slices of beef nestled, and a bowl of milk. Ramsay ate
hungrily, and after he had finished his hostess talked to him. "You're
the youngster Devil Chad beat up, aren't you?"
"I tripped," Ramsay said grimly.
"Devil Chad trips 'em all. You're crazy if you think you can get away
with anything. Best thing you can do is leave."
Ramsay said, "I guess I'm just naturally crazy."
The woman shrugged. "I'm tellin' you for your own good, kid. You'll get
nowhere in Three Points as long as Chad don't like you. Why not be a
smart little boy and beat it back to wherever you came from?"
Ramsay said, "That isn't a good idea."
"You're a stubborn kid, ain't you?"
"Mule-headed," Ramsay agreed. "Even worse than a mule."
"Well, if you won't take good advice, there's not much I can do. Would
you like to sleep here tonight?"
"Nope. I'll be going now, and thanks for the steak."
"Well ... Good luck, kid."
"Thanks."
Ramsay walked out into the darkness and drew his jacket tightly about
him. The lake shore was cold by day, much colder by night when there was
no sun to warm it. He had brought extra clothing, but all his personal
belongings had gone down with the _Holter_. He looked dismally at the
dark town--Three Points seemed to go to bed with the setting sun--and
wandered forlornly down toward the lake front. Both the sailing vessel
from Ludington and the _Jackson_ were gone.
A little wind was driving wavelets gently against the shore, and the
lap-lap of their rising and falling made pleasant music in the night.
Ramsay wandered out on the pier, where the stacked bags of salt were
covered with tarpaulins. He looked furtively around.
Nobody else was on or even near the pier, and it seemed unlikely that
anyone would come. He curled up close to the bags of salt and drew the
flowing end of a tarpaulin over his body. He pillowed his head on a
protruding bag and snuggled very near to the stack.
The pier was hard, but he had slept on hard beds before and the barrier
of salt broke the wind's force. The tarpaulin, of heavy duck, made a
warm blanket. In spite of the odds he faced, Ramsay felt a wonderful
sense of well-being and peace. He went quietly to sleep.
When he awakened, soft gray dawn was stealing like a fawn out of the
summer sky. Three Points, not yet awake, slumbered in the dim morning.
Ramsay crawled out from beneath the tarpaulin and rose to look at the
town.
Nobody gave up any battles; but nobody knocked his head against a stone
wall or strove against hopeless odds. Even the little black horse had
not done that. He might just as well see things as they were. Devil Chad
ruled Three Points and, with his present resources, Ramsay could not
fight Devil Chad. But it was certain that Chad could not rule all of
Milwaukee, too, and Milwaukee would need workers. He could go back
there, get a job and plan his future after he had it.
A sudden inspiration seemed to fall right out of the brightening sky.
The Van Hoovens! Pieter Van Hooven had told him to come back should he
fail to find what he expected in Three Points, and Pierre LeDou had
assured him that Devil Chad did not walk so freely among the farmers and
fishermen. Maybe Pieter could give him a job, at least something that
would offer security until he was able to get himself oriented; and if
he could, Ramsay wanted to stay in this part of the country. It was
better than Milwaukee.
Briskly he left the pier and struck down the sand beach. Now that he had
decided to take this step, he felt lighter and happier. Maybe he would
and maybe he would not have liked working in the tannery, even if that
had been ruled by some other man than Devil Chad, but he knew that he
would like the Van Hoovens and their way of life.
He moved fast, staying far enough up on the beach so he need not step in
wet sand but near enough the water so he could walk on sun-baked sand
over which high water had already rolled. That was packed hard, almost
to the consistency of concrete.
The sun was well up when he came again to the Van Hooven's pleasant
home. Resolutely he walked up and knocked on the back door.
A second later it opened, and Marta Van Hooven flashed a warm smile of
welcome. "Oh! Come in."
Pieter, who had already finished his milking and was now seated at the
breakfast table, said, "Hello."
"Hello," Ramsay said. "I thought I'd stop in and see you on ..." He
fumbled. "On my way back to Milwaukee."
Pieter looked seriously at him. "You're not going to work in Three
Points?"
"No," Ramsay said bluntly. "Mr. Chadbourne and I did not see eye to eye.
In fact, three minutes after we met our fists were flying in each
other's eyes."
"You fought Devil Chad?"
"I did, and got well-beaten."
Pieter said quietly, "Some day somebody will kill him."
"Some day somebody might."
"Eat," Pieter invited. He pushed a platter of eggs at the boy and forked
a thick slice of home-cured ham onto his plate. Then he placed the dish
of yellow butter where Ramsay could help himself and put a plate of
feather-light fresh-baked rolls where he was able to reach it. Marta
came softly in from the kitchen with a bowl of cold milk.
Ramsay ate, primly at first, then gave way to his enormous appetite.
Pieter served him another slice of ham. The boy took two more eggs and
another roll, which he spread lavishly with butter. Sighing, unable to
swallow another crumb, he pushed his plate back. Pieter looked gravely
at him. "Do you have to go to Milwaukee?"
"No, I just thought I might find a job there."
"You can," Pieter assured him. "But if a job is what you want, a job is
what I can give you. I can't pay you any money, at least until we have
sold our fall crops, because we haven't any. But I can give you all you
can eat, a good bed to sleep in, and I have some clothes that will fit
you."
Ramsay said deliberately, "Devil Chad won't like you for that."
"Around here," and there was no air of braggadocio in Pieter's words,
"we don't much care what Devil Chad likes."
Ramsay looked hard at his host, and then the two young men grinned at
each other.
"You've got yourself a man," Ramsay said. "What do we do first?"
* * * * *
Hidden from the house by a jutting shoulder of land, Ramsay stood beside
the small lake on Pieter Van Hooven's property and peeled off his
clothes. All day long, interrupted in mid-morning by Marta, who brought
him a substantial lunch, at noon by a huge and delicious dinner and
again in mid-afternoon with a lunch, he had toiled in Pieter Van
Hooven's sprouting corn.
All day long the sun had beaten down and, though the lake shore was cool
enough, a man doing hard physical labor could easily work up a sweat.
But it was good. Ramsay had felt the sun's rays penetrate to and warm
the very marrow of his bones. In spite of the hard labor he had been
doing, few times in his life had he felt as agile and supple and wholly
alive as this.
He plunged headlong into the lake and came up gasping. The water was
cold, though not nearly as cold as the big lake; and after Ramsay's body
was adjusted to it, a delicious glow ran through his whole physical
being. He dived again, then climbed up on the soft grass to let the
lowering sun dry him before he put his clothes on.
He dressed slowly, happily, and now all his cares were behind him. This
was the place for him, and no longer did he have the slightest doubt
that he was going to like everything about it. Fresh and vigorous, the
day's toil washed away, he walked slowly down to Lake Michigan and
stared across it. Supper in half an hour, Pieter had said when he had
advised Ramsay to stop work and have a swim, and no more than half that
time had elapsed. The rest could profitably be spent in just looking at
this endlessly fascinating water.
Ramsay stared across the lake. More than ever it seemed a live creature
and one of many moods. Ramsay had seen it roaring-mad, and now he saw it
gentle as a lamb. There was scarcely a ripple anywhere. Absorbed in the
lake, Ramsay was aware of nothing else until a horse snorted very close
to him. When he whirled, he knew that he had seen the same horse and
rider before.
It was the body-watcher, Joe Mannis, and he was riding the
black-and-white horse which he had ridden when he had warned Ramsay away
from the drowned Captain Schultz and the deck hand. The huge cowboy hat
tilted precariously on his head and the blue jeans, apparently unwashed
in a good many months, clung tightly to his legs. Thick black hair
escaped from beneath the hat, and he looked Ramsay up and down. "What
are you doin' here?"
"What's it to you?"
"Well, nothin' I expect. Nothin' at all. But just don't bother me again
when I'm workin' at my trade."
"I won't," Ramsay promised, "unless I have a couple of pistols, too."
"Just don't bother me when I'm workin' at my trade," the other repeated,
"an' we'll get along fine."
"You think so?" Ramsay snapped.
Missing the challenge implied in Ramsay's words, Joe Mannis trotted his
horse up the sand beach toward Three Points. Ramsay looked without
interest at his retreating back. Joe Mannis was an unsavory man, he
decided, but unlike Devil Chad, he was a stupid man. Only when backed by
his pistols would Joe be much of a threat.
Ramsay pushed his drying hair back with his hands and went around to the
rear of the Van Hooven house. That was also a custom, it seemed. Formal
visitors, if there were any, might enter by the front door; but everyone
else went around to the rear. Obviously the visitor who had arrived
while Ramsay bathed and stood on the shore, was not formal.
He was a tall, gaunt man with a thin face and a hooked nose. Except for
a white shirt, the collar of which was adorned by a bright ribbon that
could hardly be called a tie, from his stovepipe hat to his shoes he was
dressed entirely in black. An outlandish rig, a four-wheeled cart with a
fringed top supported on four posts, stood in the yard. Its curtains
were rolled up, and the cart seemed to contain everything from wash tubs
to pins. Pieter and the stranger were unhitching a gray horse that stood
patiently between the cart's shafts.
Pieter called the boy over, "Ramsay, this is Mr. Hammersly."
Mr. Hammersly, so-called, turned and thrust forth a huge hand. "Tradin'
Jack," he amended. "Tradin' Jack Hammersly. You need anythin', I got
it. Fairer prices as you'll find in Three Points, Chicago, or Milwaukee.
Need a box of candy for that girl of yours, Ramsay?"
"I haven't any girl," Ramsay said.
"You'll have one," Tradin' Jack declared. "Every young buck like you
needs a pert doe. Can't get along without 'em, I always say. Yup, you'll
have one. When you get one, remember Tradin' Jack."
"I will," Ramsay promised.
While Tradin' Jack washed up at the stand beside the back door, Pieter
led the gray horse to the barn, stripped it of its harness and loosed it
with the little black horse. The two animals touched friendly noses.
Pieter returned, and all three went in to the groaning table which Marta
had ready. It seemed a natural thing here, Ramsay observed, to expect
all passing wayfarers to share whatever there was to be had. Gracefully
Tradin' Jack lifted the tails of his long black coat and sat down.
"Left Milwaukee day before yesterday," he said. "Stopped off to see the
Blounts, down at Blounts' Landin'...."
Marta and Pieter Van Hooven gave rapt attention, and even Ramsay found
himself interested. Aside from being a trader, it appeared that Tradin'
Jack Hammersly was also a walking newspaper. He knew everything about
everybody between Three Points and Milwaukee, and between Milwaukee and
Kenosha. Endlessly he related tales of new babies, new weddings and new
engagements. Tradin' Jack knew that Wilhelm Schmidt's horse had the
colic but probably would recover, and that Mrs. Darmstedt, that would
be the wife of Pete Darmstedt, had shot a black bear right in her own
front yard.
There was nothing about the people he did not know and not much that he
was unwilling to tell. Finished, he got down to business. "Any eggs for
me, Marta?"
"Twenty dozen," she said, "all fresh."
"Fourteen cents a dozen," Tradin' Jack said promptly.
"Yaah," Marta, too, was bargaining now, "I can get that in Three
Points."
"Take it in trade an' I'll allow you fifteen," Tradin' Jack said. "Got
to keep my customers sweet."
Before he went to bed Tradin' Jack arranged with Pieter to have a
butchered pig ready for him when he returned from Three Points the day
after tomorrow. Two and a half cents a pound he would pay, or two and
three-quarters if Pieter would take it in trade. He left with the Van
Hoovens a tempting array of calico, ribbons, needles, pins, a new axe
and hammer, a box of nails and other things which were always useful and
always needed.
The next morning Ramsay roused himself out of bed at dawn to find
Tradin' Jack already gone. He had sensed the storm that was approaching,
Pieter said, and, if possible, he wanted to get into Three Points before
it struck. Ramsay felt a strange uneasiness and an unrest. Going
outside, he saw that yesterday's blue skies had given way to ominous
masses of gray clouds. His uneasiness mounted.
Something terrible was being brewed within the giant lake, and shortly
it would erupt. A strong wind sent high waves leaping up onto the
shore. They fell back, only to be replaced with more waves. Ramsay
shuddered.
If there was terror in this, there was also grandeur. The lake, angered,
was a fearful and wonderful spectacle. It was a gargantuan thing which
seemed to writhe in an agony which, somehow, was created by itself. A
few drops of rain pattered down. The wind blew harder.
Pieter and Ramsay went to the barn to repair tools, and neither spoke as
they stared through the barn's open door. The waves were raging now,
launching endless attacks on the shore and always rolling back.
Suddenly Ramsay leaped to his feet and stifled a cry. Far out in the
lake's surging gray masses he thought that he had seen something pure
white. But he could not be sure. A moment later he saw it again. A sail!
Then he was able clearly to identify a little peanut shell of a boat.
She was the _Spray_, and she was in serious trouble.
CHAPTER FIVE
_RESCUE_
A fresh gust of wind sent the waves leaping higher, and for a moment
only the furious lake could be seen. Ramsay rose, and Pieter rose beside
him; and both went to the barn door. They stood alert, still not
speaking and not even certain of what they had seen. Then they saw it
again.
Beyond any possible doubt it was the _Spray_, and she was working
valiantly to get into shore. Ramsay swallowed a lump in his throat. He
had first seen the _Spray_ as a dancing bit of gaiety on a lake as
stormy as this one, and then she had seemed so sure of herself and so
capable. Now she was like a shot-wounded duck which, no longer able to
rise in graceful flight, must lie on the water and flutter desperate
wings. For another tense moment Ramsay and Pieter stood side by side.
By inches the _Spray_ was fighting her way toward shore, but a glance
was sufficient to reveal the tremendous odds against her ever making
safety. Still, even in this terrible dilemma, there was a spirit about
her which the _Holter_ never had and never could have. The two men on
the _Spray_--and did not the crazy Dutch fisherman usually carry a crew
of four?--seemed to be working calmly and easily. There was, from this
distance, no trace of the near-panic that had reigned when the _Holter_
went down.
Ramsay knew a moment's intense gratification. This was part of the
dream, part of the picture he had engraved in his heart when he first
saw the _Spray_ and her skipper. When they challenged the lake, they
accepted it in all its aspects. Now they were behaving as all fishermen
should behave. Before they could even begin to follow their trade they
must make an unbreakable pact with their fortune on the water, be it
good or bad.
Then the trance was broken. Out on the lake, within sight of Pieter and
Ramsay, men were about to die. They must not die if there was any way to
help them. As though their eyes were guided by one common impulse, both
men looked toward Pieter's small boat.
It was a clumsy craft, strongly-built of heavy timbers which Pieter
himself had hand-sawed in his spare time. Usually, when Pieter wasn't
using the boat, it was pulled high enough on the beach so storm-driven
battering rams of waves could not touch it, and so it was now. Side by
side, with no need to speak, Pieter and Ramsay left the barn and raced
toward the boat.
Wind-driven rain soaked their clothing before they had gone ten feet,
but they paid no attention to it. Kneeling, one on either side of the
fourteen-foot boat, they strove to push it back into the lake. Pieter
shouted to make himself heard above the roar of the wind and the
smashing waves. "Wait!"
Ramsay stopped pushing while Pieter took the long oars out of their
locks and laid them lengthwise in the boat. The boy nodded approvingly.
As things were, it seemed all but impossible to launch the boat. If they
launched it and lost an oar in the high seas, they were doomed to
disaster, anyhow.
"Now!" Pieter shouted.
The boat scraped a deep furrow in the wet sand as, with a concerted
effort, they pushed it backwards. Not looking at the savage combers,
Ramsay gave all his attention to the boat. They would have to work with
all possible speed to get it into the lake and the oars in place,
because the waves were rising to enormous heights now. He felt the
boat's square stern touch water.
Then an irresistible giant, a force that would bear no interference,
took hold and shoved the little craft almost as far up on the beach as
it had been when they tried to launch it. Leaving the boat half-filled
with water, the smashing wave washed away from the wet sand.
Ramsay stood erect to catch his breath. They had given all their
strength to backing the boat into the lake, and as they were about to
succeed it had been plucked from their hands as easily as a strong man
might snatch a flower from the hands of a baby. He glanced out across
the water to assure himself that the _Spray_ was still floating, then
looked desperately at Pieter.
"Nose first!" Pieter said. "Turn it around!"
He shouted to make himself heard, but there was about him an almost
maddening calmness as he worked. Ramsay restrained his impatience. They
must not lose a second's time; but if they were going to do this at all,
it must be done exactly right. Both on one side of the boat, they
raised it to let the water spill out.
In spite of his drenched clothing and the cold air that blew in from the
lake, Ramsay was sweating. Pieter's boat had been built by a farmer, not
a fisherman. It was all right on a calm day when Pieter wanted to go
fishing, but certainly it had never been built to weather storms. So
heavy was the craft that the combined strength of two men was needed to
tip the water from it.
They let the boat drop heavily back on its side, and the oars fell out.
Still calmly, refusing to become excited, Pieter picked them up and
placed them in the oar locks. Again Ramsay understood. Both men knew
this for a furious storm but both had underestimated its fury. At the
best, should they be able to get the boat into the lake, they would have
a split second to float her and the oars had to be ready. It was better
to take a chance on losing an oar than to have the boat driven back onto
the beach.
Kneeling, Ramsay felt his muscles stand out like stretched cords as he
gave every ounce of strength to turning the boat around. He was sweating
again--and short of breath. Only the pressing urgency and the great need
for immediate action gave him the strength to continue.
Then the craft seemed to move a little easier, and Ramsay glanced around
to see Marta working beside them. Noting them from the house, and
understanding their mission, she had thrown a shawl about her shoulders
and raced out to help. With almost maddening slowness the boat turned
until its curved nose faced the lake.
Ramsay on one side and Pieter on the other slid it down the wet sand
toward the water. The boy bit his lip fiercely to help keep control of
himself. Nothing must go amiss here, and a wrong or panic-stricken move
could mean disaster. Because this launching demanded machine-like
precision, Ramsay fought to control the fire in his brain. Carefully he
thought out each exact step.
Get the boat into the lake until it floated. Then leap in beside Pieter,
grab an oar and time his strokes to Pieter's. Fight their way out to the
stricken _Spray_ and rescue those aboard her.
It seemed a simple matter, but never before in his whole life had Ramsay
faced anything more complex. It couldn't be done, his mind said, while
at the same time something else told him that it could and must be done.
He glanced around and curiously, as though the picture were registering
somewhere other than in his own eyes, he saw Marta Van Hooven.
She was standing at the edge of the lake, her dress and shawl sodden-wet
and her rain-soaked blond hair clinging like a seal's fur to her head
and shoulders. One hand covered her mouth, as though to stifle a cry
that was half-born there, and in her eyes were a great pleading and a
great prayer as she watched her husband. But the cry did not find life.
She uttered no sound. While she did not want Pieter to go, at the same
time she knew that he must. Only if help came did anyone left alive on
the _Spray_ have even a faint chance of staying alive.
Then they were in the lake, and a mighty wave burst like a water-filled
bomb about them. It staggered Ramsay and sent him reeling, but it did
not unnerve him. Because he had practised in his own imagination what he
must do from here on in, he could do it.
He felt cold water creeping about his shoes and then up around his
knees. The boat which they had been dragging steadied itself as they
reached water in which it could float. Through the blinding spray that
lashed at them Ramsay looked across at Pieter. He saw him only
indistinctly, but it was as though they read each other's thoughts. At
exactly the same moment they flung themselves into opposite sides of the
rower's seat and each grabbed an oar. The boy bent his back to the
man-killing job of rowing.
The boat was sluggish, and again half-filled with water. But it floated,
and as soon as they were free of the mighty waves that smashed against
the beach it floated a little more easily. Ramsay looked back across the
steel-gray turmoil to see the Van Hooven farm, and Marta still on the
shore. Then he returned all his attention to the task at hand.
The lake was an insane thing, bent on destruction. They went into the
trough of a wave and rose on the next one. Ramsay risked a fleeting
backward glance to see the _Spray_, much nearer the shore and still
afloat.
Suddenly they were in an almost-calm stretch of water. Ramsay felt cold
fear run up and down his spine. He had met this on the sinking _Holter_,
and now here it was again. Almost fearfully he glanced sidewise at
Pieter, but he could not speak because the screaming wind would have
drowned his words as soon as he uttered them. His eyes grew big.
Just behind, and again on the right side, an apparition drifted out of
the depths. It was a ghost figure, a thing born of nightmares. Ramsay
gasped. The White Sturgeon nosed to the surface, drifted lazily for a
moment and disappeared back into the watery depths out of which it had
come.
Ramsay risked a sidewise glance at Pieter, whose face remained
undisturbed, and he swallowed the lump in his own throat. Sailors might
fear the White Sturgeon, but if Pieter did, he was not showing his fear.
The boy told himself again that the sturgeon was a fish, nothing more or
less than a great fish which, through some freak of nature, was colored
white. But it did seem to appear only when death and destruction stalked
the lake. He forced such thoughts from his mind.
They were again in storm-lashed water, striving to keep their boat
straight and headed toward the _Spray_. Vast waves bore down upon them,
plunging the little craft into their cold troughs and then shooting it
up as though it were a plaything. From the crest of the waves Ramsay
could still see the _Spray_. He worried. Now there seemed to be only one
man aboard her.
There was a sharp, sickening crack and the sound of splintering wood,
that rose above the roar of the wind and the surge of the waves. The
boat slewed sideways, and for the first time Pieter Van Hooven's face
betrayed emotion. He brought in the stump of oar remaining in his hand
and, at the risk of upsetting the little boat, leaned across the seat to
snatch Ramsay's oar from its lock. With that in his hand, he made a
precarious way to the stern. He thrust the oar over the rear seat,
trying to use it as a rudder, and the boy strove to overcome the fear he
felt.
The White Sturgeon, the sailors' superstition said, always brought
disaster. If you see it, the little deck hand had told Ramsay, you can
start praying right afterwards. For one terror-filled moment their
predictions seemed correct. Twice Ramsay had seen the White Sturgeon;
each time he had been in immediate danger of death. Then superstition
subsided and reason came back to his aid.
Crouching in the back seat, with only one oar, Pieter Van Hooven was
doing his best to fight the angry lake. Though he was a farmer,
obviously he knew something of seamanship.
For a brief moment, just long enough to keep from capsizing, he kept the
little boat headed into the onrushing waves. When he turned it, he did
so skilfully. Working the oar only with the strength in his hard-muscled
arms, he headed back towards shore. A mighty wave smashed the stern,
throwing cold water over them and across the tiny craft. Ramsay moved
from side to side, doing all he could to help Pieter by shifting his
weight to where it was needed most. The boat was three-quarters filled
with water. Never made for a heavy sea, now it was an almost dead thing.
But so strong were the waves and so powerful the wind, that they were
driven at almost motor speed back into the beach. Ramsay had one glimpse
of Marta.
Pieter lost the little control he had. Turning sidewise, the boat lifted
like a matchstick on the crest of a giant wave and spun dizzily down
into the trough. It was lifted again, and just before it turned over
Ramsay flung himself clear. As he did, he saw Pieter go over with him.
He dived as deeply as he could, knowing that the boat would come
crashing down and knowing also that it would kill him if it struck him
on the head. Far into the lake he went, swimming under water and groping
his way. He surfaced to see the craft to one side and a bobbing object,
which he thought was the head of Pieter Van Hooven. A second later a
tremendous wave deposited him on the sandy beach.
He lay gasping, all the breath knocked out of him, and he wished
desperately to get out of the path of the waves that were breaking over
him. But it seemed impossible to move. His mind urged him to go, but he
lacked the physical strength to obey. Then he felt a pair of hands in
his armpits, and his body was dragged over the scraping sand. Ramsay
looked up to see the frightened face of Marta Van Hooven.
"Can you move?" she pleaded.
"Gi--give me a minute!"
For what seemed an interminable time, but could not have been more than
twenty seconds, Ramsay lay still. He turned over so that he lay face
down, and lifted himself with his arms. His legs and feet were made of
jelly. Vaguely he was aware of Marta and Pieter Van Hooven, one on each
side, lifting him to his feet. A second later his strength returned.
Keening in from the lake, the wind made him stagger backwards. Reaching
mountainous heights, the breaking waves shattered themselves far up on
the beach. Ramsay looked across them. About two hundred yards out, the
_Spray_ was completely crippled. Trailing from her broken mast, the
sail bled water into the angry lake. Down at the bows, the fisherman's
boat seemed hung up on a rock or reef. Every second wave that washed in
broke completely over her and hid her from view. But the single man
remaining on board still worked calmly with the broken half of an oar,
to free the _Spray_ from her prison.
Ramsay allowed himself another split second. The entire dream was coming
true. There were some men who, to the last, could meet the challenge of
the lake with grace and spirit. The man on the _Spray_, identified even
at this distance as Hans Van Doorst, had not given up.
The boy whirled on Pieter Van Hooven. "A coil of rope!" he ejaculated.
Without waiting to see whether or not Pieter followed his instructions,
he raced for the barn. Snatching a bridle from its wooden peg, he went
more slowly toward the corral where the little black horse was confined.
This had happened once before and it might happen again. A man's
strength was as nothing in the raging lake, but a horse was many times
as strong as a man. The black horse had brought him safely in when all
the others had drowned.
The little horse arched his neck and flicked his ears when his young
friend approached and patted him.
"Easy," Ramsay said reassuringly. "Take it easy, Black."
The little horse rested his head over the boy's shoulder for a moment,
then the latter stepped back to slip the bit into Black's mouth, put the
bridle over his ears and buckle the throat latch. The horse followed
willingly behind him as he pushed the corral's gate aside.
He mounted, and Black reared and pranced, just to prove that he could.
Ramsay tried not to look at the lake, but he couldn't help looking. When
he did, very lonely in the gray waves, he saw the reef- or rock-bound
_Spray_. The lone fisherman still could be seen, working to free his
craft.
Ramsay leaned forward to pat the little horse on the neck. "We can do
it," he murmured. "Let's prove it."
He took the bridle reins in his hand and trotted Black toward the
foaming lake. Pieter, his eyes grave, tossed him a coil of half-inch
rope. Ramsay had one glimpse of Marta's anguished face. He slipped the
coil of rope over his shoulder and did not look back.
As they approached the lake, the horse hesitated, to paw the sand with a
front hoof. He looked around to eye the rider on his back, and again
Ramsay leaned forward. "All right," he said. "Go on."
The horse accepted his words but, more than that, his confidence. Guided
by the bridle's touch, he walked willingly into the pounding lake.
Another water bomb exploded about them. They submerged, but Black came
up swimming strongly. Ramsay kept soft fingers on the bridle reins, not
wanting to exert any pressure or do anything else that might divert the
horse from the job at hand.
Tossing his head, Black sneezed to empty his nose of water that had
washed into it. He was timing himself capably and almost perfectly to
meet the waves at their place of least resistance, and he rose and fell
with them. From the crests Ramsay could see the _Spray_. From the
troughs he could see nothing. A lump rose in his throat.
The _Spray_ was indeed sadly wounded. Only part of her stern showed
above water. Hans Van Doorst still worked with a broken oar to free his
boat, and as soon as he came near enough Ramsay knew that he had been
right.
The Dutch fisherman had been one with the lake when Ramsay first saw
him, and he was one with it now. Unafraid, he fought the lake as
gracefully as a swordsman. Perched on the broken stump of mast, the sea
gull fluttered his wings and clicked his mandibles.
Ramsay gauged the situation as precisely as he could. If he could throw
his rope over the stranded _Spray_, the little horse might be able to
pull it from its anchor and back to shore. Ramsay saw Hans Van Doorst
turn to watch him. The fisherman waved a friendly hand.
Still guiding Black lightly, imposing no undue strain on the reins or
bit, Ramsay steered him across the _Spray's_ sunken prow. He let the
reins hang slackly on the horse's neck and took the coil of rope from
his shoulder. As precisely as he could, he cast and watched the rope
snake through the air.
A sick feeling arose in the pit of his stomach and he moaned audibly. He
had calculated the distance correctly but he had not allowed for the
strength of the wind. The rope missed Hans Van Doorst's outstretched
hands by two feet and fell into the angry lake. Of his own volition,
Black turned back toward shore. Ramsay saw the squawking sea gull bounce
a couple of feet into the air and spread his long wings. Grasping the
reins, for the first time the boy used strength as he strove to turn the
horse back. He glanced over his shoulder to see what might be done next,
and gasped.
Hans Van Doorst had gone to the raised stern of his wrecked boat to give
himself a running start, and as Ramsay looked, he dived. Leaping as far
as possible from the _Spray_ to avoid striking the rock, he hurled
himself into the storm-lashed lake, straight at his would-be rescuers.
For a few seconds that seemed like hours, he disappeared into the
churning depths, but when he surfaced he was squarely behind Ramsay and
he used both hands to grasp the horse's tail.
Black turned back toward shore. He swam more strongly now because he was
going with the wind instead of against it, and his double burden did not
seem unduly heavy. Ramsay saw Pieter and Marta Van Hooven, Pieter's hand
protectingly over his wife's shoulder, as they waited to see what would
happen.
The last wave burst around them and they were back on shore. Instantly
Ramsay slid from the little horse's back and looked around. A nausea
seized him. Hans Van Doorst was no longer in sight. Ramsay had tried and
failed. He glanced toward the _Spray_, as though he expected to see the
crazy Dutch fisherman still there, and knew only that waves were
smashing the boat into kindling wood.
Then, as though he had literally risen from the lake, Hans Van Doorst
picked himself up from the wreckage of a breaking wave and walked
ashore. His tame sea gull fluttered out of the sky to alight on its
master's shoulder. The Dutchman reached up to stroke his pet as he
looked at Pieter and Ramsay. "None but me and Captain Klaus?" he asked.
"None, Hans," Pieter said.
For a moment an infinite sadness, a melancholy born thousands of years
ago in the first fisherman who had seen his mates lost, pervaded the
Dutchman. But it was only for a moment. Pieter and Ramsay walked to his
side and offered their assistance. He declined it.
"I'll walk," he said.
Ramsay felt a great warmth for and a vast sympathy with this man who,
while daring all and losing all, could remain so very human. Marta
hovered solicitously near as they all went up to the house and wore
their dripping clothes into her immaculate kitchen. Hans Van Doorst sat
down, tried to fold his arms across his chest, and winced.
"You're hurt!" Marta cried.
"It is nothing." The Dutch fisherman looked at the three. "It happened
out on the lake. We struck something, I do not know what. Perhaps the
half-submerged hull of a sunken ship. Then we were in trouble."
Marta was stooping beside him, gently unbuttoning his soaking-wet shirt.
Hans Van Doorst looked fondly down at her wet and bedraggled hair, and
he offered no protest as his upper body was bared. There was a vast,
ugly scar on the right side of his chest, and when Marta touched him
there his ribs moved. The Dutchman sat very straight in his chair.
Though he must have felt pain, he showed none.
Ramsay and Pieter stood aside while Marta worked expertly. Ripping one
of her snow-white sheets into strips, she wound a bandage tightly around
Hans Van Doorst's broken ribs. Ramsay and Pieter looked significantly at
each other. Such an injury _might_ have resulted when wind or a heavy
wave flung the fisherman against something. Probably it had happened
when Hans flung himself forward in an effort to rescue a shipmate.
Marta finished her bandaging and stepped back. "You rest now."
He grinned at her. "Fishermen have no time for rest."
"Do as she says, Hans," Pieter urged.
"Come," said Marta. She went to a bedroom, opened the door and waited
expectantly.
Hans Van Doorst spread eloquent hands. "Who can argue with a woman?" he
asked. "Especially a Dutch woman?"
He rose, went into the room, and closed the door behind him. Ten minutes
later, Marta opened the door a crack and peeked in. She entered, and
came out with Hans Van Doorst's clothing.
"He sleeps," she announced. "Like a man worn out he sleeps."
Ramsay changed his wet clothes for some dry ones Pieter had given him
and went out to catch Black. From the house's ridge pole, Captain Klaus,
Hans Van Doorst's tame sea gull, squawked at him. Ramsay grinned back,
walked up to the little horse, rubbed him down, and put him back in the
corral. He did the rest of his chores, and when he went into the house
for dinner Hans Van Doorst was seated at the table.
"I told him!" Marta scolded. "I told him to stay in bed and I would
bring him his food. But can I talk reason to a Dutchman?"
"Marta," Hans Van Doorst said softly, "there is fishing to be done."
Eager interest glowed in Pieter's eyes. "Are you going again, Hans?"
"I am a fisherman."
"You are crazy," Marta corrected. "One day you will kill yourself on
that lake."
Again the sadness, the inborn melancholy, sat like a mask on the Dutch
fisherman. But only for a moment.
"Marta," he said, "fishermen do not die in bed."
CHAPTER SIX
_NEW VENTURE_
Ramsay stirred sleepily and raised a restless hand to shield his eyes
from the morning sun. Almost the whole night through, until the first
waking birds had begun to chatter just outside his window, he had lain
restlessly awake. Just thinking of Hans Van Doorst, and fishing, had not
permitted him to sleep.
Now, with the sun high, he was at last deep in slumber. Ramsay could not
know that Pieter had arisen shortly after the first birds and had the
milking all finished, or that Hans Van Doorst sat in the kitchen, eating
the hearty breakfast which Marta had prepared for him. He knew only that
he seemed to be hearing strange sounds.
There were throaty chucklings and gurglings and low-pitched laughter,
and all of it was punctuated by raucous squawks. Troubled, Ramsay rolled
over in bed and covered his head with the quilt. Even that did not shut
out the sounds, and finally he came fully awake. Sleepy-eyed,
tousle-haired, he sat up in bed.
For a moment he could not define the sounds, which seemed to originate
very near the roof of the house, and he was puzzled. Then he identified
the various noises a sea gull makes. Ramsay slipped out of bed, pushed
the double windows open, and looked into a calm morning.
There was a rustle of wings overhead and a flutter of feathers. Captain
Klaus took strong wing to circle the house. He swung back to alight on
the window ledge, and tilted his head sidewise while he regarded Ramsay
with bright, intelligent eyes. "_Qu-uark!_" he chattered.
Ramsay grinned, but when he put out a hand to touch him Captain Klaus
again took flight and sailed down to the now-calm lake. He alighted on
the shore, folded his wings across his back, and walked down the beach
until he found a storm-killed perch. With the fish in his bill, he flew
back to the house's ridge-pole to eat his breakfast while he awaited the
reappearance of Hans Van Doorst.
A little bit embarrassed, Ramsay dressed hurriedly. The working day in
this country began with dawn and ended with dark. Everything that needed
doing--and there was much to be done--had to be crowded into such
daylight as there was, and there was never enough. Hurrying down the
steps leading to the kitchen, he saw Hans Van Doorst at the table. Marta
greeted him pleasantly, "Good morning."
"Good morning," Ramsay replied. "I overslept! I didn't mean to. Why
didn't somebody call me?"
"Yaah!" Marta laughed. "Pieter said not to. You earned your sleep,
Pieter said. Sit down with Hans and have some breakfast."
Hans said, "Men who are not hungry are sick. Sit down."
Ramsay sat, and felt a free and easy sense of comradeship, as though he
and the Dutch fisherman had something in common. They felt alike and
thought alike. Hans Van Doorst had thanked Ramsay with his eyes for
rescuing him, but not once had he spoken of it and not once had he
mentioned the wreck of the _Spray_. The boy was grateful for that; he
knew that he would be embarrassed if his part in yesterday's incident
were brought into the limelight.
Marta busied herself at the big wood-burning stove, and Ramsay
speculated on the difficulties involved in just getting such a stove
into this country. Marta laughed. "While I make you the breakfast, you
listen to the crazy tales the crazy fisherman tells you."
Hans turned his twinkling eyes on Ramsay. "Marta is a good girl," he
said. "A good Dutch girl. She thinks all men are crazy."
"They all are," Marta said. "Especially you. What you need is a good
farm and stay away from that wild lake."
"Farms and me wouldn't get along, Marta." Hans laughed. "I told you I'm
a fisherman."
"Yaah? You lost everything with the _Spray_. How are you going to go
fishing again?"
Hans spread his two powerful hands. "These are what I had when I
started. These are what I have now."
"You need money, too. Money for nets, money for ..."
The door opened and Pieter came in for breakfast. Hanging his light
jacket on a wooden peg in the hallway, he took his seat at the table.
"Why does Hans need so much money?" he asked.
"He says he's going fishing again." Marta sniffed. "I've been telling
him that he should get a farm, and we can put him up until he gets one,
and ..."
"Are you really going fishing?" Pieter broke in.
"That I am. I'm a fisherman. Now look, Pieter, you get up at dawn to
milk your cows. No? To be sure, you get all the milk you can drink; but
if you're lucky, Tradin' Jack Hammersly gives you maybe half of what
your butter's worth. All winter long and all summer long you work for
those cows. A fisherman, now, he works for four months, just
four. . . ."
Pieter said, "It sounds good!"
"Pieter!" Marta broke in sharply. "You are _not_ going fishing!"
Pieter wriggled uncomfortably. "Well," he said, "I can at least listen
to what the man says, can't I?"
"One haul of the nets," Hans continued, "and maybe one thousand, maybe
two thousand pounds of whitefish. Never less than five hundred. For that
you get six cents a pound in the Chicago market. You don't earn that on
your farm, and besides, fishing is a lot more fun. A smart Dutchman
don't have to tend cows."
"_Uaah!_" Pieter breathed.
"Pieter!" Marta said.
Ramsay listened, dazzled by the prospects of a fisherman's life as
compared to any future a farmer might have. Determinedly Marta brought a
huge dish of wheat cakes and sausage over and thumped it firmly down on
the table.
"Eat!" she commanded.
The three gave all their attention to the food, and they did not speak
while eating. Then Hans pushed his chair back.
"If I am going to fish again, I must start," he announced. "First I
will go down and see if there is any salvage."
"We'll help you!" Pieter exclaimed. "My boat was not badly smashed. A
little work and it will be good as new."
"Pieter!" Marta said. "You are not going fishing!"
"Now I ask you," Pieter said plaintively, "is helping a man pick up his
own property, his very own property, is that fishing? Could anyone even
think it was fishing? No. Come on."
The three left the kitchen and walked down to the lake. Calm after the
storm that had raged across it, only little waves were washing in.
Ramsay looked out at the rock, as though half expecting to see the
_Spray_ still there, and saw nothing. Pieter gave a triumphant little
exclamation and waded into shallow water to pick up something that
bobbed back and forth.
It was the carved Valkyrie maiden that had been the _Spray's_
figurehead. Exquisitely and almost perfectly hand-carved, the wooden
statue leaned forward, as though she would embrace the whole lake to her
bosom.
Hans Van Doorst's eyes were soft as he took it from Pieter. "My
sweetheart!" he murmured.
Captain Klaus winged down from the ridge pole of the house to alight
near them. Clucking softly to himself, happy because Hans was once more
with him, he followed the three men down the beach. Ramsay found a coil
of rope, then another, and farther on was the _Spray's_ torn sail.
Ramsay pointed out onto the lake.
"About there is where we saw the White Sturgeon," he said.
"I know," Hans Van Doorst murmured. "We saw him a half-dozen times."
Ramsay looked at him, puzzled. Then, "The sailors told me he always
brings bad luck."
"The sailors!" Hans scoffed. "They know nothing about anything except
maybe how to stuff themselves with good whitefish that the fishermen
bring them! The White Sturgeon noses his way to the top when a storm
comes, so he is bad luck? Do not believe it! He is good luck! He comes
to the top so that he may show fishermen the way back to shore!"
Ramsay grinned appreciatively. This, in spite of the fact that the Dutch
fisherman's idea of the White Sturgeon bringing good luck was as
superstitious as the sailors' notion that he always brought bad, fitted
in. It was what Hans should have said.
"How big is that sturgeon?" Ramsay asked.
"The Grandfather of all lake fish," Hans Van Doorst asserted solemnly.
"Have you not noticed that, like all grandfathers, he is white? In
truth, I have never seen a bigger fish anywhere."
"Another coil of rope!" Pieter said, pouncing on it.
Hans, who had grinned happily with each new find, did not even look
around. Ramsay looked at him questioningly. Anything but stolid, the
Dutch fisherman had been bubbling over at the prospect of going fishing
again. Now he seemed melancholy, immersed within himself, and his whole
attention was given to the lake.
Ramsay followed his gaze, but saw little. True, a vast number of small
aquatic worms had been washed ashore by the pounding waves. There must
have been countless millions of them, so many that they formed a living
carpet as far up the beach as the waves had washed. The wriggling,
writhing mass was now disentangling itself, and the worms that could
were crawling back into the lake. A number of sea gulls and a number of
land birds were gorging themselves, and new birds arrived by the flock.
They scarcely made a dent in the multitude of worms. Ramsay looked again
at Hans Van Doorst.
"Never, never!" the fisherman breathed.
Pieter, too, swung to look curiously at him. "What's the matter, Hans?"
"I went on the lake when I was a boy of thirteen," Hans Van Doorst said.
"That was fourteen years ago, in 1852. I thought I had seen much, but
never have I seen this!"
"What?" Ramsay asked impatiently.
"Look around you," Hans said. "What do you see?"
"Worms."
"Not worms! Food for whitefish! With these millions washed up, can you
not imagine the vast amount remaining in the water? We are all rich
men!"
"You think so?" Pieter queried.
"There is no doubt of it! The whitefish go where their food is! There
must be countless tons of whitefish here at your very door step, and
here is where we shall fish!"
"Do whitefish eat only worms?" Ramsay asked.
"No. They feed on other things, too, notably their own spawn or that of
other fish. But enough of this idle talk! I must have a net so we can
start fishing at once! Pieter, I would borrow your horse and cart!"
"The cart you may have," Pieter said. "The horse belongs to Ramsay."
"Go ahead and take him," Ramsay urged.
Hans tripped like a dancer to the barn, caught the little horse, and
backed him between the shafts of Pieter's two-wheeled cart. Bubbling
like a boiling kettle, entirely happy, he started at a fast trot up the
sand beach to Three Points. With a startled squawk, Captain Klaus
hurried to catch up. The tame sea gull settled affectionately on the rim
of the cart's seat.
As Ramsay watched him go, he felt a vast envy of the light-hearted
fisherman. If ever he could go away like that, he thought, he would have
lived life at its fullest. Not until he looked around did he discover
that Pieter was watching too, and his eyes were wistful.
"There is work to be done!" Marta called.
They flushed and walked towards the barnyard, where Marta was tending
her poultry. Geese, chickens and ducks swarmed around her and pigeons
alighted on her shoulders. She kept her eyes on the men.
As Ramsay and Pieter cleaned the cowbarn, both remained strangely
silent. Both thought of the Dutch fisherman. Then Pieter, who had
promised to have a dressed pig ready for Tradin' Jack Hammersly, started
honing a razor edge on his butchering tools. Ramsay picked up a hoe,
preparatory to returning to the corn-patch.
"You think he'll get a net?" Pieter asked.
"I hope so!"
Moodily, scarcely seeing or knowing what he was doing, Ramsay chopped at
weeds that had stolen a home in the growing corn. The work suddenly
lacked any flavor whatever. Millions of worms, whitefish food, washed up
on the beach and the bay in front of Pieter's swarming with whitefish!
That's what the Dutch fisherman had said. Marta brought his mid-morning
lunch, and her eyes were troubled.
"Do you think Hans will get what he wants?" she asked.
"I don't know. Marta, why don't you want Pieter to go fishing?"
"You heard what he said. Last night he said it. Fishermen do not die in
bed. Those were his words."
"Just talk. The lake's safe enough."
"Yaah? Is that why Joe Mannis can make more money than anybody else
around here, just watchin' bodies? Aah! I worry about my man!"
Ramsay said gently, "Don't worry, Marta."
Marta returned to the house and Ramsay continued working. In back of the
barn Pieter had his butchered pig strung up on a block and tackle, and
the two men looked at each other. Both were waiting for Hans Van Doorst
to return.
About a half-hour before noon Captain Klaus soared back to his
accustomed place on the house's ridge pole. A moment later the little
black horse appeared on the beach, and Hans drove to the barn.
Ramsay and Pieter, meeting him, stifled their astonishment. When Hans
left them, to all outward appearances he had been a normal person. Now
blood had dried on his nose and his right eye was puffy and streaked
with color. Anger seethed within him.
"There is no honor any more!" he said bitterly. "And men are not men!"
"What happened?" Ramsay inquired.
"What happened? I went to Three Points to get us a pound net! Carefully
did I explain to that frog-mouthed Fontan, whose wife knits the best
pound nets on Lake Michigan, what I wanted. I know pound nets cost five
hundred dollars, but I was very careful to prove that we have untold
riches just waiting to be caught! As soon as we made some catches, I
said, we would pay him his money, plus a bonus for his trouble. Fontan
became abusive."
"Then what?" Pieter said.
"He hit me twice. Because of these thrice-cursed broken ribs I cannot
move as swiftly as I should. Then I hit him once, and the last I saw of
him he was lying on one of his wife's pound nets. After that came the
constable who, as everybody knows, is merely another one of Devil Chad's
playthings, and said he would put me in jail. It was necessary to hit
the constable, too."
Hans Van Doorst leaned against the side of the barn, glumly lost in his
own bitter thoughts. Coming from the house to meet Hans and sensing the
men's moodiness, Marta fell silent beside her husband. Ramsay unhitched
the little black horse, put him back into the corral, and hung the
harness on its wooden pegs.
After five minutes, Pieter Van Hooven broke the thick silence. "I do not
know whether or not it will be any good, perhaps not. But last year a
fisherman came here in a very small boat. He was going to Three Points,
he said, to get himself a larger boat and he had to make time. I do not
know what happened to him, for he never came back and I have not seen
him since. Probably Joe Mannis got him. But before he took his leave he
asked me to store for him a box of nets and ..."
"A box of nets!" Hans Van Doorst's melancholy left him like a wind-blown
puff of feathers. He put an almost passionate arm about Pieter's
shoulders. "All is lost! All is gone! Then this--this miracle worker! He
talks of a box of nets! Tell me, Pieter! Tell me it is still there!"
"It must be, for it was never taken away," Pieter said.
"Then let us get it! Let us get and look at it before I faint with
excitement!"
Pieter and Hans disappeared in the barn, and a moment later they
reappeared with a long, deep wooden box between them. Having lain in the
barn for a year, the box and its contents were thick with dust and
spiders had woven their own gossamer nets everywhere. Hans Van Doorst
patted the dust away. He looked with ecstatic eyes, and he unfolded a
few feet of the net. Ramsay saw that it was similar to the gill net
insofar as it had stones--sinkers--on one side and a place for floats on
the other. Made of sixteen-thread twine, the net had a three-inch mesh.
"A seine," Hans Van Doorst pronounced, "and a well-made seine, though it
was not made in Two Rivers. It was brought here by one of the Ohio
fishermen, for that is the way they tie their meshes. Let us see some
more. I would say that it is about eight hundred feet long. That is not
ample; we still need good pound nets, but with it we may again go
fishing. Help me, Pieter."
Pieter and Hans dragged the box to a small tree, tied one end of the
seine to the tree's trunk, and began to unwind the net toward another
little tree. Ramsay saw how shrewdly the Dutch fisherman had guessed.
The trees, within a few feet one way or the other, were just about eight
hundred feet apart and Hans Van Doorst tied the other end of the seine
to the far tree. He stood still, a small happy grin lighting his face,
and looked at their discovery.
Slowly, with Ramsay, Marta and Pieter trailing him, he started to walk
the length of the seine as it lay on the ground. He kept his eyes
downward, and as he walked along he talked almost to himself. "A good
seine, yes, a good seine, but it has received hard use. Here is almost
five feet where it scraped among sharp rocks, and the mesh is worn.
Under a heavy load of fish, it will break. That hole was made by a
sunken log or other object, for you can see that it is a clean tear.
This one was made by a huge fish, probably a sturgeon, for just see how
the mesh is mangled where he lunged time after time against it. Now this
. . ."
Slowly, missing no inch of the seine, he traveled the length of it, and
as he traveled he marked every hole and weak spot by telling himself
about it. Reaching the end, he stood nervously tapping a finger against
his forehead. "My hands are more accustomed to pulling seines than
mending them," he told the three. "Still, if we are to make the catch we
can make, this seine must be mended. I will try to mend it."
"I worked on a net in Three Points!" Ramsay said eagerly. "I stayed for
a while with Pierre LeDou, and because there was nothing else to kill
time, I helped Madame LeDou knit a gill net! This cannot be too
different!"
"You!" For a moment Ramsay thought Hans was going to kiss him. "So!
Everything works our way! Yaah? You fix the seine!" His face fell. "No.
We must have new twine. Now where will I get it?"
"I have some," Marta spoke up. "Good linen twine, easily a match for
anything in this seine."
"And you would give it?" Pieter asked incredulously.
Marta shrugged. "You're going fishing, anyway, and I'm going with you.
Men always want all the fun."
The smile Hans turned on her was rare. "A good Dutch girl," he said.
"Thank you, Marta."
Pieter and Hans cut tripods--three poles strung together at the top to
form a standard--and at necessary intervals raised the seine to them so
that it was completely off the ground. Like a huge tennis net, broken
only by the tripods, it stretched between the two trees. Ramsay stood
beside it with a one and one-half inch meshboard--this mesh was three
inches--and a ball of the fine linen twine which Marta had given him.
He worked as fast as he could, while at the same time he did not
sacrifice efficiency. More than ever fishing seemed to be an art within
itself, and if the seine were not perfectly made, then it was better
left alone. A slipshod or hasty knot could cost them a hundred pounds of
fish, or even the seine itself. As Ramsay went along, he judged for
himself which parts needed repairing. Any mesh that seemed to be worn
must be replaced; a whole school of fish might follow each other through
a single hole.
For half an hour Hans stood watching him. Then, satisfied that Ramsay
knew what he was about, he went off to cut new floats and place them on
top of the seine. A dozen times he went down to study the bay, looking
carefully and judging for himself the depth at which they would find the
largest schools of whitefish. Coming back, he adjusted the stone sinkers
accordingly.
Absorbed in his work, Ramsay gave no thought to the passage of time
until Marta called him for supper. As soon as he had finished eating, he
returned to the net. Darkness deepened and still he worked on.
"Ach!" Marta said. "You'll kill yourself working! Can you not come in
now?"
"Just a little while. Bring me a lantern."
Ramsay heard Hans Van Doorst murmur, "A fisherman, that one," and a
yellow lantern glowed behind him. It was nothing more than a tallow
candle set in a glass case but, Ramsay thought, he really didn't need a
stronger light. So sensitive had his fingers become to the feel of the
net, and so expert was he in knitting new meshes, that, almost, he would
have been able to do it with his eyes closed. He worked on while, held
alternately by Hans and Pieter, the lantern moved with him. He forgot
the ache in his fingers and the weariness in his body. He knew only that
the sooner the net was in good working order, the sooner they could go
fishing.
The pre-dawn birds were again singing when Ramsay finally bumped against
something and, so absorbed had he been in his work, it took him a moment
to realize that it was the other tree. He held the mesh board in fingers
which, strangely and suddenly, seemed to lack all nerve or feeling. He
blinked almost stupidly and stepped back.
When he spoke, his words sounded almost silly. "Well," he said, "there
it is."
"There indeed it is!" Hans chuckled. "And there it will be until, as
soon as possible, we get it into the water. Come now and sleep, for with
the morning's sun I would have you go with me."
Ramsay stumbled to his bedroom, took his shoes off, and without removing
any of his other clothing, fell across the bed. Instantly he was
submerged in exhausted slumber from which he was awakened by a gentle
hand on his shoulder.
"Come now," a voice said.
Ramsay sat up with a start, to see Hans Van Doorst looking down at him.
Again with a guilty feeling, he knew that he had slept far beyond the
time when any worker in this country should sleep. Hastily he sprang out
of bed. "I'll be right with you!"
"Compose yourself," said Hans Van Doorst, who had awakened him. "There
is no need for any mad rush. I thought you might wish to help me."
"Oh, sure!"
Ramsay grinned faintly when he discovered that, except for his shoes, he
was fully dressed. He put his shoes on and tied them, went outside to
wash at the wash stand, and came in to eat the breakfast Marta had
ready. Scarcely noticing what he ate, he gulped it down.
"Easy," Marta cautioned. "The stomach complaint you will be giving
yourself!"
"I must hurry! Hans is waiting for me!"
"With men it is always hurry, especially when they go to do what they
wish to do anyway. Aah! Only a man would give up a good farm to go
fishing!"
"Pieter has not given up his farm," Ramsay pointed out.
"He will," Marta prophesied. "He will, and he will go fishing with you
and that crazy Hans."
"Oh, Marta, don't be so sad about things! It ..."
She was sunny again. "Go along now. Hans is waiting."
Hans had Black hitched to the cart and was waiting outside the door. His
wings calmly folded, Captain Klaus sat on the back of the seat. Ramsay
climbed up, and Hans slapped the reins over the horse's back. They
started up the sand beach--there was a corduroy road but the sand was
smoother--toward Three Points.
Ramsay grinned impishly as they drove through the town, because he felt
the questioning glances of the towns people. Devil Chad controlled all
this, and Devil Chad had made it very clear that Ramsay was not wanted
in Three Points. Maybe Hans wasn't wanted either but, as Pierre LeDou
had pointed out, the fishermen and farmers cared little what anyone else
thought. Ramsay looked about, hoping to see Devil Chad, but he was
nowhere in sight. A little disappointed, he relaxed beside Hans.
They drove through the village and up a rutted little road that wound
among gloomy hemlocks. Ramsay saw a doe with a fawn at her side, staring
at them. As they drew near the doe raised her white tail over her back
and disappeared. Hans grinned at her.
"They shoot the mammas with the babies," he said, "just like they do the
papas with the horns. There is no more right in that than there is in
netting a spawning fish."
"You mean because the babies will die?"
"Yaah. Then, after there aren't any more deer, people just do not
understand it. Some awful disease, they say, carried them off. They do
not know that their own lack of sense carried them off. It is the same
with fish. Those who seine in the spawning season kill maybe two hundred
for every one they take. When there are not any more fish, they will
invent a terrible disease that carried them off."
Ramsay felt a little alarm. "Do you think there won't be any more?"
"The whitefish," Hans pronounced, "cannot last in numbers such as you
find them in now. That is because so many of them are being caught. For
maybe ten thousand years they are filling the lake until now no fish is
more numerous. Yaah, for many years they were a food staple of the
Indians. I myself have seen Indians spearing them, or shooting them with
bows and arrows. Tribes came from as far as the Mississippi River to
fish here. But a net fisherman takes more in one season than a whole
tribe of Indians used to, and often the fishermen cannot even take care
of what they catch. I have seen whitefish, good eating whitefish,
stacked like cordwood along the beach and left to rot there. I have seen
them fed to pigs. The best fishing along Lake Erie is already gone, due
to such excesses. That is why fishermen from Ohio come here."
"Will fishing end?" Ramsay inquired.
"That I do not think. Considering it from all angles. Now a fisherman
will catch perhaps a thousand whitefish, and maybe a hundred sturgeon,
for every trout. Why? Because the whitefish and sturgeon eat trout spawn
is part of the reason. When the whitefish and sturgeon are gone, the
trout will multiply until they are the big catch. If the trout are taken
or die out, there will be something else. No. There will always be
fishing here, but it will be better when men learn to fish wisely and
not to take anything in the spawning season."
"When is that?" Ramsay inquired.
"Whitefish and trout both spawn in the fall, from the fifteenth of
October until the fifteenth of December. The sturgeon, I think they are
a river fish and that they go up the rivers to spawn. If ever the rivers
are closed, there will be many fewer sturgeon."
The gloomy little road swerved back toward the lake. They broke out of
the trees, and Ramsay saw the water again. Built into it, at this point,
was a rambling wooden pier. There was a house and a fishing shanty. Tied
to a stake in a patch of green grass, a sad-eyed brown cow munched
placidly on a five-pound whitefish. Tied to the pier, a saucy
twenty-six-foot Mackinaw boat, much like the _Spray_, bobbed up and
down. Nearer the beach was another boat, evidently a sadly worn one.
Nets of various kinds were strung on reels close to the lake.
The house's door opened, and a ferocious little black dog snarled
toward them. Showing white teeth, foaming at the mouth, he hurled
himself straight at the visitors. Hans laughed and swung down from the
cart, and as soon as he did the little black dog leaped about him to wag
an almost furious welcome. Hans grinned and knelt to tickle the dog's
ears.
"Like most Frenchmen, you can do nothing unless you do it violently," he
soothed. "Where is your master?"
The house's door opened and a man, whom at first Ramsay thought was a
boy, flung himself out. Barely five feet tall, he was dressed in
breeches, leather leggings with colored fringes and a shirt that seemed
to sport every color in the rainbow. He threw himself at Hans.
"_Mon ami!_" he screamed. "My friend! It has been so long, so very long
since you honored us with a visit! Tell me what has kept you away for so
very long?"
"Baptiste," Hans said, "meet one of my new partners, Ramsay Cartou.
Ramsay, Baptiste LeClaire."
Baptiste wrung Ramsay's arm as though it were a pump handle and in spite
of his small size, he was very strong. He looked frankly at the boy.
"You have," he asked, "bought an interest in the _Spray_?"
"The _Spray_ is no more," Hans informed him. "She went back to the
lake."
"Oh."
For a moment Baptiste was very sober. Then both men laughed, as though
they shared some huge secret which nobody else could ever understand.
Baptiste exploded.
"What is it you need, my friend? My boats, my nets, my pier, my life?
Name it and it is yours!"
"No," Hans said. "What we need is barrels. Good oaken barrels with
pliant black ash hoops. We also need salt. We have a net and we have a
boat."
"That is all you need?" Baptiste seemed disappointed.
"That is all."
Baptiste turned and in rapid-fire French directed orders at three men
who were lingering near. At once they began to take barrels built to
hold two hundred pounds of fish from a huge pile near the fishing shanty
and to stack them on Baptiste's boat. Ramsay read her name, _Bon Homme_.
Baptiste LeClaire turned to his visitors.
"Now that you are here," he said, "share the hospitality of my poor
home."
"With pleasure," Hans agreed.
They went into the house to meet Baptiste's wife, a sparkling little
black-eyed French woman. Producing the inevitable jug, Baptiste filled
three gourds with fiery whisky. Hans and Baptiste drained theirs with
one gulp. Ramsay nursed his, both men laughed at him. But the boy could
partake of the delicious fish stew which Baptiste's wife prepared.
A half-hour after Ramsay and Hans returned to the Van Hooven farm, a
white sail bloomed out in the bay. She was the _Bon Homme_, loaded
halfway up the mast with barrels and salt. Hans Van Doorst rubbed his
hands in undisguised glee.
"Now," he chuckled, "we go fishing!"
CHAPTER SEVEN
_PARTNERS_
Ramsay was puzzled. Hans Van Doorst had arisen even before the first
faint streaks of dawn cracked the night sky and without waiting for
anyone else to get up, or for breakfast, he had gone out to work. He was
not fishing, for he had assured Ramsay that there would be no fishing
until all could take part. Furthermore, Hans had said, the fishing would
need all of them. One man alone could not take enough fish to make it
worthwhile.
Still, Hans had gone out before it was properly light enough to see.
Ramsay had heard Captain Klaus greet his master from the top of the
house. What anyone would be doing out of bed at such an early hour
remained a mystery. In the dim morning light, descending the steps to
the kitchen, Ramsay continued to wonder why Hans had gone out when he
did. He greeted the Van Hoovens, who were already washed up for
breakfast, and Marta went to the back door to call, "Hans!"
Captain Klaus' hoarse squawk broke the morning stillness, and a second
later there was an answering call from Hans. He was down at the beach,
doing something there, and presently he came in.
Ramsay grinned appreciatively at his appearance, for the Dutch
fisherman's cheeks glowed like the rising sun. His eyes sparkled, and a
perpetual chuckle seemed to gurgle in his throat. Plainly Hans had been
doing some invigorating work, but it was work in which he took a vast
pleasure. Anything onerous could not possibly put such a shine upon
anyone at all. Hans washed at the basin outside the door.
"Ah!" he breathed as he sat down to the huge breakfast Marta had
readied. "This looks good!"
"I should think a stale crust would look good to anyone who puts in a
half-day's work before anyone else stirs," Marta said.
"It would!" Hans agreed, helping himself to half a dozen eggs and an
equal number of bacon slices. "It would, and many a time I have dined on
only a crust! But fare such as this! Fit for the angels! I'm the
luckiest fisherman alive, I think!"
"Also the most oily-tongued," Marta added. Nonetheless she was pleased.
"I suppose, when we are all wealthy from fishing, you will hire a cook
for me?"
"Not I!" Hans said. "Never I! Hiring anyone but you to do our cooking
would be as out of place as hiring Joe Mannis instead of a preacher to
do our praying! No, Marta! Not elsewhere in Wisconsin is there one who
equals your skill with cookery!"
Pieter, who often tried to beguile his wife but seldom succeeded,
laughed. Marta blushed. While Hans devoured what he had already taken,
then served himself to three more eggs, Ramsay ate almost feverishly.
Today was the big day, the time all of them had been waiting for,
because today they went fishing. Ramsay finished and waited with
ill-concealed impatience while Pieter and Hans mopped their plates with
crusts of bread. All three went outside.
Squawking and chuckling, as though at some huge joke, Captain Klaus
winged down from the rooftop to alight on his master's shoulder. He
tilted, flapping his wings to balance himself, and caressed Hans' cheek
with his hard, cold bill, even while he kept up a running fire of sea
gull chatter. Hans reached up to stroke his pet.
Ramsay looked down at the beach, and saw two structures which had not
been there yesterday. Hans must have built them this morning. They were
windlasses, made of peeled logs, and about eight hundred feet apart. One
was the conventional windlass--a drum mounted on two uprights and with a
crank that could be turned by hand. The spindle of the other--all these
lake men could work miracles with logs or anything else at their
command--was set vertically in a stone and log foundation and it had a
long, stout shaft protruding from its center. Ramsay looked
questioningly at Hans.
The Dutch fisherman shrugged. "It is simple," he explained. "We have but
one horse. Therefore, we men work the one while the horse turns the
other. Marta can lead it."
Ramsay was incredulous. "You mean we'll take so many fish that a horse
will be needed to drag them in?"
Hans' throaty chuckle sounded. "If we do not," he said, "from now on
forever you may say that Hans Van Doorst is not a fisherman. Say that he
is just a little boy who plays at fishing."
With a fisherman's skill, Hans was coiling a rope. He settled it
carefully in the bottom of the boat, so that it wouldn't kink or snarl
when paid out, and was alert to avoid stepping on or tangling it in
anyway. Folded exactly as Hans wanted it, with all the floats on one
side and all the sinkers on the other, the net was overhauled on the
stern of the boat. Another coil of rope lay on the net, and Hans tied
one end of that to the spindle of the horse-powered windlass.
Then he looked happily at Pieter and Ramsay. "Now," he said, "I need an
oarsman."
"I'll row!" Ramsay offered eagerly.
"Go ahead." Pieter grinned.
So expertly that he scarcely ruffled the water and did not even disturb
his net or rope, Hans launched the boat. He waded in up to his knees,
paying out more rope as he did so, and held the boat steady until Ramsay
waded out beside him and climbed into the rower's seat.
Ramsay tried to board cautiously, skilfully, as he had seen Hans do.
Obviously a great deal of careful work had gone into folding the net and
coiling the rope. Everything had to be done exactly right, and one
clumsy or ill-timed move could make a hopeless snarl out of all. Still,
Hans seemed confident and sure of himself. Probably, Ramsay thought, he
had done this so many times that doing it was almost second nature. The
boy looked expectantly at Hans.
"Straight into the lake," the Dutch fisherman directed. "Keep a straight
right-angle course to the windlass; you can do that by sighting yourself
from it. Row as swiftly as you wish."
With strong, surging strokes of the oars, Ramsay sent the ponderous boat
out into the quiet lake. He watched Hans carefully, trying to note
everything he did, and his respect for fishermen grew. The Dutchman sat
almost carelessly in the stern, to all outward appearances not even
interested in what he was doing. But, as they continued out into the
lake, the rope continued to slip smoothly over the stern. There was
never a tangle or even a kink. It looked easy, but net-weaving had
looked easy too before Ramsay tried it. Beyond any doubt, it took skill
and long familiarity with the job to handle six or eight hundred feet of
rope in such a fashion and do it perfectly.
They came near the end of the rope and Ramsay slowed his strokes a
little. The laughing Dutch fisherman turned to him.
"Sharp left," he directed. "Stay about this far out in the lake and row
a bit more slowly. Now we set the seine."
Ramsay followed instructions, watching the beach line to make sure that
he stayed the proper distance out, and Hans began sliding the seine over
the stern. He did it smoothly, gracefully, as he did everything
connected with fishing. Ramsay nodded approvingly to see how well Hans
laid his net and how expertly he had guaged the place in which it was to
be laid. Instead of curling toward the beach, the seine, obviously
controlled by a current that swept into the lake, billowed outward.
"Does the lake have different currents?" Ramsay asked interestedly.
"That it does. When the wind blows toward shore, of course waves wash up
on the shore. But the lake, she moves in a thousand different ways, and
the currents that appear on the surface are not always like those that
surge beneath the surface. Ah, yes! Many moods has Lake Michigan and,"
Hans grinned, "not many of them are placid moods."
"How could you tell that a current to hold the seine was right here?"
"I felt it when I had hold of your horse's tail."
Ramsay pondered that information. The current holding the net certainly
was not perceptible from the surface. It would not be evident at all,
except to one who had a thorough understanding of such things and was
able to sense the most minute change in the water that lay about him. Of
course, the stones, the sinkers, probably helped hold the seine in place
too.
Foot by foot, the seine slipped into the lake and a long line of it
stretched at an angle toward the boat. Ramsay tried to judge for himself
how far the net was going down. He could not because he had had too
little experience in fishing, but he was sure the seine rested exactly
where Hans wanted it to rest.
Without seeming to move, Hans leaned over to pick up the other coil of
rope. Smoothly he tied it, and the last few feet of seine slid over the
boat's stern to disappear in the lake. Ramsay waited expectantly for
directions. They came.
"Straight as you can towards the other windlass," Hans said. "Then we
are all ready."
Again Ramsay turned at a right angle toward the other windlass. Now he
began to understand the setting of a seine. There were the two
windlasses, the two six-hundred-foot ropes and the seine running
parallel to the beach. Now, Ramsay supposed, they would beach the boat,
tie this rope to the other windlass, and be ready to haul in the seine.
If they did not make a good catch, they could lengthen the ropes and put
the seine farther out in the lake. Also, by adding more sinkers or
subtracting some, they could raise or lower the seine. Ramsay tried to
make some observations about the water in which they were fishing.
It was comparatively shallow, though at all places except very near the
shore it would float a fair-sized ship. Also, it seemed to have a rather
smooth bottom. In addition, though the bay could at times be angry, it
was more sheltered than some places. Storms here probably would at no
time reach the heights of fury that they reached on the open lake.
Because he was anxious to learn as much as he could about fishing,
Ramsay asked some questions. "Are whitefish usually found in shallow
water?"
"Almost always," Hans said. "Though they need not necessarily always be
found close to shore. I myself know of reefs where we will be sure of
wonderful catches as soon as we get some pound nets, and some of them
are a mile or more out."
"Then the lake bottom varies?"
"Oh, yes! To get an idea of what the bottom of the lake is like, take a
look at the land about you. Here you find a hill, or a succession of
rolling hills. Here is a stretch of flat prairie. There are deep gulches
and bluffs. You will find clay, sand, loam, small stones, boulders. As
I've already said, the lake's bottom is almost exactly like the land
about it."
"What's the deepest part?"
"Baptiste LeClaire and I once sounded a place off the Wisconsin
peninsula. We touched bottom with a thousand feet of line, and I think
that may be the deepest place in Lake Michigan, though I cannot be sure.
I have not sounded every place in the lake and, for that matter, neither
has anyone else."
"Are there deep-water fish?"
"The trout ordinarily seeks deep water, though they may be found in
shallows in the spring. However, there are not enough trout to be worth
a fisherman's while. Some day this may change."
"Is there any way to set a net so a fisherman may be sure of a good
catch?"
"Not once in ten times, if he is just beginning, can a fisherman be
certain of a good catch, or of any catch. The tenth time is the
exception. I am sure, for instance, that there must be a vast number of
whitefish in this bay, because the food for them is here. Otherwise, the
fisherman must be taught by experience, or by another fisherman, where
to set his nets so that he will make a good catch. Watch it now. We are
about to land."
The nose of the little boat bumped gently against the sand beach, and
Hans stepped out into knee-deep water. Paying no attention to his
soaking-wet shoes and trousers, he uncoiled the rope as he walked up the
beach and tied it through a hole which he had drilled in the spindle of
the hand windlass. More gingerly, not afraid of getting wet but not
anxious to do so, Ramsay stepped to the nose of the boat and leaped
onto the dry beach.
Pieter and Marta joined them, and all turned puzzled glances on Hans;
they knew almost nothing about the technique of fishing and must look to
him. Ramsay watched the fisherman test the taut rope with his hand, and
a little smile of satisfaction flitted across his face.
Excited himself, Hans looked at the even more excited people about him.
"Relax." He grinned. "The seine is not going anywhere, and we will soon
see what we have caught. Ramsay, do you want to harness the horse and
bring him down?"
"Sure."
Ramsay trotted to the barn, anxious to be doing anything that would help
relieve the seething tension within him. Everything he had done this
morning--indeed, everything he had done since meeting Hans Van
Doorst--had been fascination itself. Now, if Hans' predictions were
right, and the Dutch fisherman seemed so absolutely sure of himself,
they would soon be in the fishing business. Ramsay laid a friendly hand
on Black's mane, and the little horse followed willingly into the barn.
He stood quietly to be harnessed. Ramsay fastened a singletree to the
harness tugs and hooked a strong chain onto it.
Partaking of the humans' excitement, Captain Klaus winged low over the
beach, crying and squawking as he wheeled and dipped in graceful
circles. Ramsay grinned at him. Of all the pets a fisherman might have,
surely a sea gull was the most fitting.
Ramsay led Black toward the far windlass, the one the horse was to work,
because Hans, Pieter and Marta had gathered about it. Captain Klaus
came out of the sky to alight on top of the windlass, and the horse
scraped a restless front hoof across the sand beach. Ramsay looked
inquiringly at Hans, who frowned and stepped back, then turned to the
boy. "We need a longer chain," he decided. "Will you get one?"
"Sure."
Ramsay ran back to the barn and returned with the longest chain Pieter
had. Hans hooked it to the windlass shaft, laid it out flat, and then
connected it to the chain Ramsay had already brought. The boy nodded
understandingly. The rope dipped into the lake, then rose to the
windlass spindle. The chain had to be long enough so that the horse, in
walking around and around, could step over the rope.
Hans turned to Marta. "When I give the word," he said, "lead the horse
in a circle around the windlass. Lead him slowly; we do not want the
seine to come in too fast. Try to maintain a steady pace, and we will do
our best to suit ours to yours. Both ends of the seine must come in
evenly."
"Yaah!" In spite of her dire forebodings about fishermen, Marta's eyes
were shining like stars. "Yaah! I can do it."
"Good," Hans said gently. "I know you can. Ramsay, you and Pieter come
with me."
The three men took their places by the other windlass, and Ramsay tried
to suppress a growing excitement. He waited tensely, both hands on the
crank; Pieter was on the other side of the windlass.
Looking once more at the taut rope stretching into the lake, Hans Van
Doorst raised his voice, "All right, Marta!"
Grasping the cheek strap of the little horse's bridle, Marta began to
lead him slowly around and around. Tense, sweating a little, Ramsay took
a fierce grip on the windlass crank and looked at Hans. The Dutch
fisherman, his eyes on Marta, timed the turning of the windlass. "Now!"
he said.
Ramsay strained with every muscle and nerve, and great beads of sweat
dripped from his forehead. Hans had built well and with a full
appreciation of leverage and tension; nevertheless, the windlass was
hard to turn. The seine itself would be responsible for part of that.
Dry, one man could carry it. But when lake water penetrated every one of
its hundreds of meshes, the seine would surely weigh much more. However,
no net of any description could within itself weigh this much. Hans must
have guessed correctly. There were endless fish in the bay and the
incoming seine must be loaded with them.
"Faster!" Hans exclaimed.
Ramsay gritted his teeth and turned the windlass faster. He shot a
fleeting glance at Marta, who was still leading the horse slowly. Even
so, Black was going too fast. The combined strength of three men was no
match for the strength of a horse. Hans' bellow split the air, "Marta,
stop!"
Marta halted the little horse and Ramsay leaned his weight against the
windlass' crank so that they would not lose what they had already
gained. He gulped in great, refreshing breaths. Hans asked, "Can you
hold it?"
Ramsay and Pieter nodded, and Hans walked down to talk with Marta. She
must lead the horse even more slowly, for the men could not keep up with
him. If both ends of the seine were not pulled in evenly, if the net was
tilted or bent, the catch could well be lost.
Ramsay straightened as Hans came back to take hold of the crank. "All
right," he said.
Ramsay turned, setting his shoulder to the windlass while his breath
came in excited little gasps. The rope, tight as a stretched wire,
sloped into the lake. Though it was stoutly built of heavy logs, the
windlass trembled on its frame. The crank became harder to turn and the
wet rope wrapped like a clinging hair about the spindle. Ramsay gasped.
Out in the lake, just beyond the shallow water at the edge of the beach,
the seine's floats showed. The seine itself was bent like a bow, its two
ends straining toward the windlasses while the center arched into the
lake.
The gleam of silver in the seine seemed to cast a soft radiance over the
lake and the beach, and even a powerful current could not have bowed the
seine in such a fashion. Ramsay set his shoulder to the windlass and
helped give it two more turns. Down at the other windlass, Marta was
watching them. She, too, had learned. The men could not keep up with the
horse, so she was adjusting the horse's speed to them.
Farther up the seine came, so that some of the sinkers were dragging in
the shallows. The floats were bowed over, forming a sort of half-sack,
and the center of the seine still arched back into deep water. Ramsay
saw a tight little grin appear on Hans Van Doorst's face. Pieter was
looking incredulously at the loaded net.
"A little more!" Hans pleaded. "Just a little more! Get the center up!"
They took two more turns, brought the center of the seine into shallow
water, and Hans latched the windlass. With a wild whoop, the Dutch
fisherman raced down to the lake and stooped to grasp a
hundred-and-fifty-pound sturgeon caught in the net. Hans dragged it up
onto the beach, left it there, and returned to get a bigger one.
"Nets unload!" he sang out.
Ramsay ran forward, heedless of water that surged about his knees. He
stumbled, fell headlong, and arose sputtering. But, now that he was
soaking-wet anyway, it no longer made any difference. He grabbed a
six-pound whitefish in each hand and threw the pair far up the beach. He
grinned as he watched Pieter drag another big sturgeon out of the seine,
and grabbed two more whitefish.
"Yaah! For once men work with a real will!"
Ramsay turned around to see Marta, her spray-wet hair plastered close to
her head. Her feet were spread almost defiantly apart, and the smile on
her lips and the laugh in her eyes were proof of the fact that she was
now whole-heartedly with them. Fishermen risked a lot. But who didn't
risk when they played for big stakes? Lake Michigan was there, until now
an almost untapped source of wealth; and if nobody dared to get this
hoard, it would remain forever in the lake. Somebody had to try. In that
moment, as never before, Ramsay knew that they were in the fishing
business.
Only vaguely was he aware of Pieter and Hans working beside him, and he
did not know how long it took to get all the fish out of the seine. He
knew only that suddenly the net sagged emptily. He took two small
whitefish out of it, threw them back into the lake, and watched them
swim away; then he looked at Hans Van Doorst.
"Let us bring the net up to dry," Hans said.
They reeled in the windlasses and stretched the soaking seine between
them. Ramsay turned for a look at the beach, and he could not see it
because the sand was covered with fish. Hans had been right. The bay in
front of the Van Hooven home was a very paradise for fish. Countless
sturgeon and whitefish lay on the beach. Ramsay heard Hans say, "Now we
go to work."
Hans hitched the little horse, brought the cart down to the beach, and
began throwing whitefish into it. The bigger, heavier sturgeon, of
course, Hans had to lift into the wagon box. When they had a load, he
drove to the stacked barrels left by Baptiste LeClaire. Ramsay watched
interestedly.
A little trickle of water wound into the lake at this point, and Hans
had dammed it in such a fashion that a miniature cataract fell over the
stones and mud which he had placed in the water course. Beside this were
a big, flat wooden dish, evidently also made by Hans, and several sacks
of salt. The Dutchman produced three razor-sharp fish knives, more
salvage from the _Spray_, and turned to Pieter. "Do you want to bring
the rest of the fish up?"
"Yaah. I'll do that."
Hans caught up a six-pound whitefish and, seeming to use his knife very
little, he cut its head off. Leaving the fish unscaled, he sliced it
down the backbone to the end of the tail and spilled the viscera out. He
washed his fish in the dam's tiny spillway and, filling the wooden dish
with salt, he rolled the split whitefish in dry salt. Then he placed it
carefully in a two-hundred-pound barrel.
Ramsay caught up a fish and a knife and tried to imitate exactly Hans'
procedure. But, though he thought he was doing everything precisely as
the Dutchman had done it, he was much slower. Hans had two more fish
ready and in the barrel before Ramsay was finished with one. Grimly
Ramsay worked on. If this was a part of fishing, it was a part he must
and would learn. He picked up another fish and, as he worked, he gained
skill.
As soon as one barrel was filled, Hans threw a couple of hands full of
salt on top, fitted a head to it and clamped it down with a black ash
hoop. Again Ramsay nodded understandingly. He had supposed that a brine
solution in which to pack the fish must be prepared, but evidently none
was necessary. Enough water remained on the fish to form their own
brine. Packed in such a fashion, they would keep for many months.
Pieter brought another load of fish and another, and then set to work
with a fish knife to help clean the catch and pack it. The big sturgeon,
of course, had to be cut into suitable strips and salted before they
were packed. Some of them were filled with roe--caviar--and Pieter
carted pails full of that to feed Marta's poultry. The remainder of the
waste was loaded into the cart and hauled far away from the scene of the
packing. Then Hans scrubbed everything carefully. Fishermen who packed
food for human consumption must be very clean.
The sun was down and the moon up before they finished, but when they
were done they had packed seven barrels--fourteen hundred pounds--of
whitefish and three barrels of sturgeon. It was a rich haul. Though they
had worked for almost seventeen hours, each of them had earned more
money than the average worker in Devil Chad's tannery received in a full
month.
Ramsay sighed as he cleaned and honed his fish knife, and Hans said,
"The moon is bright and right for working, and we need a pier."
"A pier?"
"Yaah. Else how will a boat put in to pick our catch up? I work for an
hour or so."
Ramsay, thinking of his comfortable bed, stumbled down to the lake to
help Hans put in an hour or two on the pier.
CHAPTER EIGHT
_ACTION_
Restlessly Ramsay picked up a big whitefish and cleaned it. Salting it,
he threw the fish into a barrel and picked up another. A freckle-faced
urchin about ten years old stood near, watching him. The youngster was
Johnny O'Toole, son of Shamus O'Toole. In the summer Shamus did odd
jobs. In winter, when boats could not run, he drove one of the sleds
that carried leather from Three Points to Milwaukee and cattle hides
from Milwaukee to Three Points.
"You goin' to fix a sturgeon?" Johnny demanded.
"Sure," Ramsay said absently. "Pretty soon."
Ramsay's eyes kept straying out on the lake, past the solid wooden pier
which Hans, Pieter and Ramsay, had erected. The past days, it seemed,
had been nothing but work. Up with the dawn and out to make another
catch of fish. Pack the catch, and spend any time that remained working
on the pier. Weeds were sprouting as high as the corn, oats were heading
untended and unheeded on their stalks, and the farm was getting only the
skimpiest attention. All this because they had decided to gamble on
fishing.
When the _Jackson_, summoned by Hans, had nosed into their pier, she had
taken on board a hundred and twenty barrels--twenty-four thousand
pounds of whitefish--and forty thousand pounds of sturgeon. The
whitefish, Hans had assured them, would bring not less than five cents a
pound in the Chicago market and the sturgeon were worth three cents a
pound. When they had their money they would be able to buy a pound net,
a pound boat, more salt and barrels, and be ready for fishing on a
really big scale.
Ramsay's eyes kept darting toward the lake. The _Jackson's_ skipper had
said that, depending on how much cargo he had to take on in Chicago and
the number of stops between Chicago and Three Points, the ship would be
back Tuesday or Wednesday. This was Tuesday, and Ramsay could not
control his impatience.
"Fix a sturgeon," Johnny pleaded. "Fix a sturgeon now."
"I ... All right, Johnny."
Ramsay began to dismember a hundred-pound sturgeon, and Johnny O'Toole's
eyes danced. He stood anxiously near, trying to remember his manners,
but his impatience triumphed. "Gimme his nose, will ya? Can I have his
nose?"
"Sure, Johnny."
Ramsay, who had learned a lot about dressing fish since his first
halting attempts, sliced the sturgeon's nose off with one clean stroke
of his knife. The nose was round as a ball, and as rubbery, and every
one of the numberless freckles on Johnny O'Toole's face danced with
delight when Ramsay tossed it to him.
Immediately, Johnny began bouncing the sturgeon's nose up and down on
the hard-packed ground. He had only to drop it, and the nose bounded
higher than his head. This was the rubber ball, and sometimes the only
plaything, of children who lived among the commercial fishermen of Lake
Michigan. Johnny began throwing the nose against a tree, catching it in
his hand as it rebounded to him.
Ramsay--Hans and Pieter were down at the lake, strengthening the
pier--picked up another sturgeon and filled a barrel. He sprinkled the
usual two handfuls of salt on top of the filled barrel, fitted a head to
it, and bound it tightly with a black ash hoop. Ramsay looked at the two
sturgeon remaining from this morning's catch, and decided that they
would just about fill a barrel. He rolled one of their dwindling supply
over.
"Can I have their noses, too?" Johnny begged. "Can I? Huh?"
"Sure, Johnny."
"Gee! Thanks!"
Johnny O'Toole began to play with his four sturgeon noses, sometimes
bouncing all of them at once and sometimes juggling them. Ramsay
continued to steal glances at the lake. If everything worked out the way
Hans said it would, they would have ... Ramsay dared not think of it,
but, even after they paid the skipper of the _Jackson_ for hauling their
catch to Chicago, there would be a great deal.
"I'd better be goin'," Johnny O'Toole said. "My Pa, he whales me if I
stay out after dark. Thanks for the sturgeon noses. I can trade two of
'em to my brother for a knife he's got."
"You're welcome, Johnny. Come back when we have some more sturgeon."
"I'll do that!"
Bouncing one of the sturgeon noses ahead of him, Johnny O'Toole started
up the beach toward Three Points. Ramsay watched him go, then cleaned
the last of the sturgeon, put them in a barrel and sealed it. As the
evening shadows lengthened, he looked again at the bay. The _Jackson_
still had not put in, and he gave up. The ship would not be here until
tomorrow. He left the barrels where they were and went toward the house.
Tradin' Jack Hammersly's four-wheeled cart was again in the yard, its
curtains rolled up to reveal the trader's tempting array of wares. His
gray horse was in the corral with the little black, and Tradin' Jack
Hammersly's stovepipe hat was decorously placed on the bench outside the
door. Ramsay grinned faintly as he washed up. The Trader was an
eccentric character, and Ramsay suspected that his eccentricities were
planned; they made good advertising. But he was likeable, and now they
would get more news. Ramsay went into the house.
"Hi, Ramsay," Tradin' Jack greeted him. "How about a pretty ribbon for
that girl of yours?"
"I still haven't any girl."
"Slow," Tradin' Jack asserted. "So much time you have spent around here
an' still no girl. Too slow."
"I'll get one," Ramsay promised, "but I've been too busy fishing to look
the field over."
Tradin' Jack nodded sadly. "Yes. I heard it. That's what I did, heard
it. So you go fishin'. So what happens? Can a trader trade fish? No. He
can't. Fish you sell in Chicago. Fishermen are the ruination of
traders."
"Not everybody will go fishing," Pieter pointed out. "Enough will stay
at farming to keep you supplied. Besides, with all the money the
fishermen are going to earn, they can buy a lot more of your goods."
"That's so," Tradin' Jack agreed. "That's so, too, but a man's got to
take everything into account. If he wants to stay in business, he has
to. Got any eggs for me, Marta?"
"Yaah! Crate after crate."
"I'll take 'em. Take 'em all. Fourteen cents a dozen. Fourteen and a
half if you'll take it in trade."
His mind on the _Jackson_, which even now should be churning its way
toward them, Ramsay only half-listened as Tradin' Jack rattled on about
the various events which, combined, went to make up life on the west
shore of Lake Michigan. Remembering little of what he had heard, Ramsay
went upstairs to bed. Snuggling down into the soft, feather-filled
mattress, he tried to stay awake and could not. The work was always too
hard and the days too long to forego even one minute's slumber.
* * * * *
The sun was only half-awake when Ramsay got up, breakfasted and went
back to the place where they cleaned their fish. Everything that could
be was packed and the grounds were clean, but yesterday they had ripped
a ragged gash in the seine and now that needed repair. Ramsay, assisted
by Hans, set to work with a ball of linen twine. He lost himself in what
he was doing. The important thing, if they wanted fish, was to get the
net into the water and use it. Even one half-hour must not be wasted.
Ramsay was jerked out of his absorption in the net by two shrill blasts.
He sat up, and sprang to his feet as the blasts were repeated. Looking
in the direction of the pier, he saw the _Jackson_, her wheel churning
up a path of foam, nosing toward the mooring place. Pieter appeared, and
Marta. All four raced to the pier, and they reached it before the
approaching steamer did. Ramsay and Hans secured mooring lines which a
deck hand threw to them, and Captain Williamson of the _Jackson_ came
down a short ladder.
He was a bustling little man who wore a blue-and-gold uniform which,
Ramsay thought, would have graced an admiral in any navy. But he was
efficient and he knew the lake. For eleven years he had been running the
_Jackson_ between Three Points and Chicago without getting her into or
even near trouble.
Captain Williamson took a white sheet and a wallet from an inner pocket,
and he read from the sheet, "Twenty-four thousand pounds of whitefish
you gave me. It brought five cents a pound, or twelve hundred dollars,
less a cent a pound for the hauling. Here you are, nine hundred and
twenty dollars."
From the wallet he extracted a sheaf of bills and handed them to Hans.
Ramsay looked questioningly at him. "The sturgeon?" he asked.
"Ha!" Captain Williamson snorted. "There's enough sturgeon layin' on the
Chicago pier to run the whole city for the next six weeks. Nobody's
buying it but, since I hauled, I have to be paid. See you later,
gentlemen."
Captain Williamson scrambled back up his ladder, which was hauled in
after him. Snorting like an overworked draft horse, the _Jackson_ backed
away from her mooring, made a wide circle into the lake, and puffed on
toward Three Points. Ramsay looked incredulously at the money in Hans'
fist, slow to realize that, even if they split it among the four of
them, it would be more than half a year's wages for each and they had
earned it in less than two weeks. Then he looked at Marta's face and
burst out laughing.
From the first, Marta had been with them only half-heartedly and only
because Pieter could not be swayed from fishing. Now, seeing enough
money to buy a farm, and with tangible evidence that fishing paid well,
she had swung completely to their side. Pieter and Hans joined in
Ramsay's laughter while Marta looked puzzled. She was, as Hans had
declared, a good Dutch girl. Definitely she was not avaricious, but no
good Dutch girl could fail to be impressed by the sight of so much
money. Hans clasped the bills firmly and looked at his partners. "What
do you say?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" Ramsay inquired.
"Pound nets we need, pound boats. Men to help us set them. More salt and
more barrels. We owe Baptiste. Or shall we divide what we have and keep
on fishing with the seine?"
"Will it take so much to buy those things of which you speak?" Marta
inquired.
"This and more, if we really want to take fish."
"Then let's do it!" Marta declared.
"Pieter?" Hans inquired.
"Fishing beats farming."
"Ramsay?"
"I came here to fish."
"Come with me."
Hans hitched the little black horse, and Ramsay climbed up on the cart
beside him. Captain Klaus, hurrying frantically from his perch atop the
house, alighted on the cart and caressed Hans with his bill. The Dutch
fisherman whistled happily as he drove along, and Ramsay grinned. This
was the way to get things done; work every second of every day to catch
fish and then, without even thinking twice about it, invest everything
they had earned in more equipment so they could catch even more fish.
Captain Klaus winged off the cart to go and see what some of his wild
relatives along the lake shore were doing.
Ramsay turned to Hans, "How big is this pound net?"
"Ha! You have never seen one?"
"Never."
"Soon you will. Very soon you will. There are a lot of pieces in each
net and, all together, they weigh about six hundred and fifty pounds. It
will cost, I think, about thirty cents a pound, or perhaps two hundred
dollars for each net. Then we shall need at least one pound boat, and
that will cost an additional two hundred dollars. We shall need more
rope, perhaps two hundred and fifty pounds, at a cost of about nine
cents a pound. Then we shall have to hire men to help us drive spiles
for the net. We need more barrels, more salt. The money we have here
will provide us with no more than one net."
"How many should we have?"
"I think that you, I and Pieter could handle three on part time. We
could very well use seven or eight if we gave full time to pound nets.
However, as soon as we get three in working order--and meanwhile we will
continue to seine--we will build a good Mackinaw boat, like the _Spray_,
and use gill nets, too."
Ramsay whistled. "We're really getting in deep!"
"Ah, yes!" Hans said gleefully. "But the fishing, it is a business! It
is the only business for a man!"
Ramsay pondered thoughtfully. Devil Chad, who lately had seemed remote,
was now near and his presence could be felt. Probably, to anyone who
knew Devil Chad, it would be impossible to go into Three Points without
sensing his nearness. If Devil Chad had set out to control everything,
then why hadn't he made an attempt to control fishing? Certainly it was
profitable. Ramsay dismissed the thought. Maybe Devil Chad had his hands
full and lacked the time to intrude on the fisheries. It still seemed
strange that he would lack time to intrude on anything that offered an
honest, or even a dishonest, dollar.
Captain Klaus came winging back to the cart and perched on the
Dutchman's shoulder. Hans turned the little horse down a dim road, one
Ramsay had not yet noticed, on the edge of Three Points, and they came
out on the borders of a river that emptied into the lake.
There was a large shed with a chimney that leaned at a crazy angle and
belched a thin trickle of smoke. Hans halted the little horse, who
immediately lowered his head to nibble at one of the few patches of
green grass growing on this sand beach. Ramsay turned his head to look
at the place.
Lumber of various sizes and cuts was stacked all about it, and there was
a pile of uncut logs left to season. Ramsay saw the gleam of a saw and
caught the scent of a wood-fired boiler. Now the saw's shrill roar was
stilled and the boiler's fires were banked. Ramsay looked at the dozen
boats that were drawn up on the river bank. They were sturdy, fourteen
to sixteen feet long, and propelled wholly by oars. At the back of each
was sort of a small winch. There were broad seats and long oars. Ramsay
turned to face the man who emerged from the shed.
He was tall, blond and so big that he was almost fat. But his quick eyes
were not those of a dull-witted fat man, and his big hands tapered into
slim, expressive, artist's fingers. A ready smile seemed engraved on his
thick lips, and his blue eyes lighted readily. "Hans!" he exclaimed.
"Hello, Tom," Hans said.
"What the dickens! I thought you'd gone off some place!"
Hans laughed. "Not me! I wish you to meet one of my new partners, Ramsay
Cartou. Ramsay, Tom Nedley. He is an artist with the wood and could make
fine violins, but he prefers to pass his time on this river bank, making
pound boats for indigent fishermen."
"Glad to know you." Tom wrung Ramsay's hand. "What are you up to?"
"We have come," Hans announced, "to get a pound boat."
"Sure. Take your pick."
"We," Hans said grandly, "have the money to pay for it."
"Gosh! I heard you lost the _Spray_?"
"That we did," Hans conceded, "and three good men with it. But we shall
build another boat as good. Can you, by the way, supply me with a good
oaken keel and cedar planking?"
"Sure. I'll even show you where there's some big cedar stumps that'll do
for the ribbing."
"I already know," Hans said. "What we wish to have you do now is deliver
a good pound boat to Pieter Van Hooven's place. Two hundred dollars?"
"Yup. But if you haven't the money ..."
"We have it," Hans assured him. He counted out some money and pressed it
into Tom Nedley's hands. The big boatmaker looked both embarrassed and
pleased. "Gosh! Thanks! Got your spiles driven?"
"Nope."
"For that you need two boats."
"Of that I am aware. But we do not have money to buy two."
"I'll get my brother, my cousin and their sons," Tom Nedley offered. "Be
down in the mornin'."
"For that we will pay you."
"Aw, Hans ..."
"Take it." Hans grinned. "We are certain to get rich fishing but, if we
don't, you will have something."
"Aw shucks ..."
"Take it!"
"We'll be there."
"Thanks," Hans said.
Mounting the cart, he turned the horse around and at a smart trot drove
up into the village. Ramsay sat proudly erect, feeling strength like
that of a young bull arise within him. This was the village from which
he had been driven in disgrace by Devil Chad, but it was a village he
dared return to. Any time he felt like it he would return to Three
Points, and let Devil Chad meet him if he dared. Hans stopped the horse
in front of a cottage which might have been an exact duplicate of the
one occupied by Pierre and Madame LeDou.
Letting the horse stand, Hans leaped from the cart and faced Ramsay.
"This," he announced loudly, "is the home of Frog-Mouth Fontan, whose
good wife is about to sell us a pound net. Frog-Mouth, by the way, is
one of Devil Chad's closest friends."
As though summoned by the voice, one of the very few tall Frenchmen
Ramsay had ever seen appeared at the door. His mouth, the boy noticed,
was oddly like that of a frog. As soon as he recognized his visitor, he
emitted an enraged bellow and charged.
Hans grinned, stepped aside, and swung. But Frog-Mouth Fontan was an
expert fighter, too. He dodged, pivoted and dealt two swift blows that
set Hans' head to rocking. Then the Dutchman found the range, and sent
his pile-driver fist into Frog-Mouth's jaw. He hit again, and a third
time. Frog-Mouth Fontan staggered, weaved backwards, and with a silly
grin on his face sat down against the cabin. He continued to grin
foolishly, staring into the bright sun. A small, dark woman without any
teeth appeared at the door. She looked at her husband, then spat at him.
"_Cochon!_" she said. "Pig!" She looked at Ramsay and Hans. "What do you
want?"
"One of your excellent pound nets, Madame Fontan," Hans murmured
politely.
"Do you have the money to pay for it?"
"We have it."
"Load the net."
Ramsay helped Hans lift the folded net, four pieces of
three-and-a-quarter-inch webbing, two pieces of six-and-a-quarter-inch,
and seven pieces of eight-and-a-half-inch, onto the cart. The latter
sagged beneath almost seven hundred pounds of net, and the little horse
looked questioningly around. But he stepped out obediently when Hans
slapped the reins over his back, and Captain Klaus squawked over them as
they returned to Pieter's farm.
* * * * *
The next morning Ramsay stared in astonishment at a unique craft coming
down the lake. Five men, one of whom was Tom Nedley, manned the
outlandish rigging, and it was propelled by two sets of oars. Ramsay
strolled down to meet it, and noticed some spiles--poles--about
thirty-five feet long, that were piled on the beach. Evidently Hans had
cut them, or had them brought down, after he and Ramsay returned home.
The craft, and as it drew near, Ramsay saw that it was two sixteen-foot
pound boats, bound together by stout planks front and rear, nosed into
the pier. The crew disembarked, and Tom Nedley introduced Ramsay to his
brother, his cousin and their two strapping sons. Ramsay turned a
curious gaze on the boats.
They were lashed solidly together by planks that kept them about fifteen
feet apart. On top of the planks was raised a sort of scaffolding,
connected by a heavy beam whose nether surface was about twenty feet
from the water. Suspended from the beam was a four-pulley block with a
rope through each pulley, and the ropes supported an iron drop hammer.
There was another pulley whose use Ramsay could not even guess.
Shouting and scrambling as though this were some sort of picnic
especially arranged just for them, Tom Nedley's boisterous crew threw
the spiles in the water and floated them out to the boats. They tied
them to the stern, then set up a concerted shouting. "Hans! Hey, Hans!
Pieter!"
Grinning, Hans and Pieter, who had lingered over their breakfast after
Ramsay was finished, appeared from the house. Tom Nedley's brother said
plaintively, "Twenty minutes of six! Half the day gone already! Don't
you fellows ever do anything except sleep?"
"Yaah!" Hans scoffed. "Who is so filled with ambition?" He looked at the
oarsman who had spoken and leaped lightly into the boat. "Now we will
see who is the best man."
Ramsay jumped on board just in time to keep from being left behind, and
Hans bent his mighty back to the oars. In the second boat the other
oarsman tried to match Hans' pace, and the unwieldy craft spurted away
like a frightened deer. Trailing behind, the spiles left a path of
bubbly ripples.
Out of the bay they went and into the open lake. Then they turned south,
obviously Hans had some destination in mind. At any rate, he seemed to
know exactly where he was going. They stopped rowing on a reef about a
mile from shore, and one of the men retrieved a spile.
Tom Nedley spoke to Ramsay. "Feel strong?"
"Sure thing."
"Good. We'll need some strong men around here. Wait until they're set,
an' then I'll show you what to do."
Hans and another man up-ended the spile and probed toward the lake
bottom with it. They hung it on the other pulley and, when it was in
place, the end was about three feet below the drop-hammer. Hans fastened
it to the pulley, steadied it with his hands and sang out, "Let her go!"
Tom Nedley handed a long rope to Ramsay, bade him hold it tight, and two
men in the other boat took the other two ropes. Jerking the rope in his
hands, Tom Nedley tripped the latch holding the drop-hammer, and
instantly Ramsay felt the weight.
He hung on very tightly and was reassured by Tom Nedley's quiet, "You'll
soon get the hang of it. When I give the word, let the hammer fall just
hard enough to hit the spile. Stop it, of course, before it hits the
boys steadyin' for us."
Ramsay waited, his eyes on Tom Nedley. The big man said, "Now!"
The hammer dropped squarely but not completely, because Ramsay tried to
stop it too soon. Again Tom Nedley reassured him.
"Just let her fall," he urged, as he helped raise the hammer back into
position. "There's plenty of time to stop her, but don't be careless.
That hammer weighs a hundred and seventy five pounds, an' I doubt if
even Hans' head would take that much fallin' on it."
This time Ramsay got the rhythm. The hammer dropped swiftly, squarely
and with full force. It seated the spile in the lake bottom, so that
there was no longer any necessity for holding it. Hans and the other
stepped back. Again and again Ramsay helped drop the hammer, until the
pole was driven about eight feet into the lake bottom and perhaps four
feet remained above the surface. It had been about thirty-six feet to
start with, therefore the water at this place was twenty-four feet deep.
It should be right for whitefish.
"Let me take that rope a while," someone said.
Gladly Ramsay relinquished his rope to Pieter, and rested his aching
shoulders while he watched interestedly. The piles were being driven in
a geometrical pattern, a sort of square, and Ramsay understood that the
first nine were to hold the pot, the actual trap. Measuring carefully,
the boats moved away and more spiles were driven. These were for the
hearts of the net. Finally, running straight toward shore, spiles were
driven in a pattern that resembled the forks of a 'Y.' To these would be
attached the tunnel, the webbing that guided fish through the hearts of
the pound net and into the pot.
Ramsay straightened, easing his aching shoulders. It was hard work, very
hard, to lift the hammer and let it fall for hours on end. But now the
spiles for one pound net were driven. The boy turned to Hans. "Gee whiz!
How about moving all this?"
"You don't move a pound net except, of course, to take up the webbing
when the lake freezes. Otherwise, we'll leave this right where it is. It
is possible to fish a pound net in the same location for fifty years or
more."
"What's next?"
"Set the net. I think there is still time."
They rowed back to the pier, where Marta, who had taken over the
treasurer's post, paid Tom Nedley and his crew. The big man grinned his
thanks.
"You need us again, you know where to find us."
"We'll probably take you up on that," Hans said.
The ropes binding the two boats were loosened and the scaffold taken
down. Leaving the boat Hans had bought, Tom Nedley and his helpers piled
into the other one and started rowing up the lake. Hans, Pieter and
Ramsay went to the pound net.
The pot, the trap, was loaded first. Then came the flaring, heart-shaped
'hearts,' and finally the leads, or tunnel. Setting himself to the oars,
Hans rowed back to where they had driven the piles. He tied the lead,
the beginning of the tunnel, to the spile. A five-pound stone fastened
to the bottom rope carried it down into the lake. Giving the oars to
Ramsay and cautioning him to travel slowly, Hans fastened the lead to
each spile and sank it with stones. The flaring hearts were set in the
same way.
Coming to the pot, Hans first fastened a four-foot chain with an
attached pulley to the pile. Then he tied a rope, double the depth of
the water and with some allowance for shrinkage, to the bottom of the
pot. He did this on each spile, and they put the whole pot into the
water. Ramsay began to understand.
In effect, they had set a gigantic fly-trap. Any fish that came along
would be guided by the tunnel into the hearts, and then into the pot.
Should any escape, the flaring sides of the hearts would keep them
trapped and, nine times out of ten, send them back into the pot instead
of out through the tunnel.
* * * * *
Ramsay labored under the weight of a two-hundred-pound sturgeon which
had been dragged in by the seine. Hans and Pieter hadn't wanted to
bother with sturgeon because there was no market for them, anyhow, but
Ramsay had permitted them to throw none back into the lake. Cradling his
slippery prize across his chest, as though it was a log, he carried it
to the pond and threw it in. For a moment the sturgeon swam dazedly on
the surface, then flipped his tail and submerged. Ramsay gazed into the
pond. It was alive with sturgeon weighing from seventy-five to almost
three hundred pounds. There were so many that, to supplement the food in
the pond, they were feeding them ground corn.
Ramsay stripped off his wet clothes and dived cleanly into the pond.
Water surged about him, washing off all the sweat and grime which he had
accumulated during the day. He probed along the pond's bottom, and felt
the smooth sides of a sturgeon beneath him. It was only a little one.
He swam on until he had to surface for air, and dived again. Across the
pond's murky depths he prowled, his white body gleaming like some great
worm in the water. Finally he found what he was looking for.
It was a big sturgeon, and it was feeding quietly. Moving as slowly as
possible, Ramsay rubbed a hand across its back. Suddenly he wrapped both
arms about the fish and took a firm grasp with his bare legs.
For a moment, while the dull sturgeon tried to determine what was
happening, there was no movement. Then the big fish awakened to danger
and shot to the surface. With all the speed of an outboard motor he
sliced along it, and a moment later he dived again. Grinning,
exhilarated, Ramsay swam back to shore and dressed.
Tradin' Jack Hammersly's rig was in the yard, and Ramsay heard the man
say, "Marta, what you been feedin' your hens?"
"The best!" Marta said indignantly. "The very best!"
"The best of what?"
"Why grain, and scraps, and ..."
"And sturgeon roe?"
"Why--yes."
"What I thought," Tradin' Jack sighed. "Ye'll have to stop it. Ever'
customer as got some of your eggs told me they taste like caviar!"
A moment later there was a rapid-fire sputter of French expletives. His
face red, seeming about to explode, Baptiste LeClaire raced around the
corner of the house.
"Get your guns!" he screamed when he saw Ramsay. "Get your knives and
clubs too! Get everything! We have to kill everybody!"
CHAPTER NINE
_PIRATES_
Baptiste was dancing up and down, flinging his arms like the blades of a
windmill and screaming in French. Ramsay wrinkled his brow. He had
picked up some French, but not enough to translate the torrent of words
that rolled out of the agitated man's mouth. And never before in his
life had he seen anyone so mad. Baptiste was invoking every evil he
could think of, a most generous portion, upon someone's hapless head.
Ramsay made a move to stop him.
"Wait. I can't follow you...."
A few English words, among which Ramsay recognized pig, dog and son of a
rotten fish, mingled with Baptiste's violent Gallic tirade. He continued
to wave his arms and yell. Ramsay waited helplessly, unable to
understand or to do anything. Attracted by the clamor, Hans, Pieter,
Marta and Tradin' Jack appeared.
Very quietly Hans advanced to Baptiste's side. "What is it, my friend?"
Almost tearfully, grateful because, at last, he had someone able to
understand, Baptiste turned his machine-gun rattle of French on Hans.
Ramsay watched the Dutch fisherman's face tighten, and then it was set
in white-hot anger. He waited for Baptiste to finish, and asked in
English, "Do you know who did it?"
"No." Having worn himself out, Baptiste lapsed naturally into English,
too. He turned his hot, angry face on the others.
Hans spoke again. "Go to Madame Fontan in Three Points," he said to
Baptiste. "Tell her that I, Hans Van Doorst, said that you are to have
the nets you need. If she has not enough woven, get them elsewhere.
Madame LeDou makes excellent seines and gill nets. Go to the store for
the rope you need, and tell them I will pay for everything. We ourselves
will come to help you drive new spiles and make new sets."
"It is good of you," Baptiste's face was still flaming with rage, "but
we cannot let the matter rest there."
"Nor can we," Hans' tone was calm and reasoning, "go about shooting
people when we do not know who to shoot."
"Pah! I know! It is Devil Chad!"
"Have you proof of that?"
"The proof is self-evident. Who but Devil Chad would dare do such a
thing?"
"Did you see him?"
"Does one see the wise fox when he comes in the night to steal a fat
goose? No, I did not see him."
"Listen, my friend. Listen carefully. If this sort of piracy has been
started and we do not end it, we are lost. But ours will be a small
triumph if all of us get ourselves hanged. We must proceed with
caution."
"I do not like caution."
"Nevertheless, we must now employ it. We cannot rush off with guns and
shoot because we suspect. Get your nets and whatever else you need, and
start anew. When you can bring me proof of the pirates, I myself will be
the first to shoot."
"It is the stumbling way."
"It is the only way. If there is to be war, then let there be war. But
we cannot strike out blindly. To do that will be to turn every man's
hand against us. We cannot fight at all if we do not know our enemies."
For a moment the dark-visaged little Frenchman stood uncertainly. Then
he looked directly at Hans. "I will do as you say," he agreed. "But
should I catch anyone at my nets, they or I will not live to speak of it
afterwards."
"The same will happen should I catch anyone at our nets," Hans promised.
"But let us catch them before we act."
Baptiste LeClaire swept his hat off, made a courtly bow, murmured, "Your
health, Madame and Messieurs," and turned back toward the pier. Expertly
handled, the _Bon Homme_ sailed gracefully into the lake. Astonished,
Ramsay stared at Hans, and Pieter and Marta reflected his astonishment.
"What's got him by the ear?" Ramsay asked.
"Baptiste," Hans said, "had three pound nets which he tended with pound
boats. He had a number of gill nets which he visited with the _Bon
Homme_, a proper gill net boat."
Hans stared out on the lake, as though seeking the answer to some
question that plagued him. He turned to face the others.
"Baptiste has no more pound nets. They have all been raised and ripped
to shreds. The spiles to which he attached them were broken. Of the
gill nets he once had, one remains. The rest were destroyed. Aside from
his years of labor, Baptiste has lost more than two thousand dollars'
worth of nets."
"Who did it?" Ramsay gasped.
Hans shrugged. "Someone who has discovered, at last, that there is money
to be had in Lake Michigan fishing. Someone who will stop at nothing to
get all of it for himself."
There was conviction in Ramsay's "Devil Chad!"
Hans shrugged again. "So Baptiste thinks."
"What do you think?"
Hans swung so fiercely on him that Ramsay retreated a step. "You heard
what I told Baptiste!" the Dutch fisherman said. "We must be certain! It
is not for us to appoint ourselves judge, jury and executioner! Before
we act we must be sure!"
"Should we call in the constable?"
Hans said scornfully, "Devil Chad's man!"
"What must we do?"
"Watch ourselves," Hans declared. "Hereafter we must leave the nets
unguarded and the lake without our own patrol, only when we are sure it
is safe. If someone has come to take from us our right to fish, we must
be our own protection. At the same time we must not act blindly. The
lake is big enough for all. If one has come who would take everything
for himself, we fight."
"You know it's Devil Chad."
"I know no such thing."
"Do you suspect him?"
"Yes," Hans answered frankly.
"Then why not take action?"
"Look, boy," and Ramsay writhed because never before had Hans addressed
him in such a fashion, "lives are now at stake. Let us be sure before we
lose ours or take someone else's!"
"You are right," Pieter approved. "Yes, you are right."
Puzzled, Ramsay looked at his two partners. It was absurd to suppose
that either was afraid; they had proven their courage too many times.
Yet, though both thought Devil Chad the raider, both refused to move
against him until they had proof of his piracies. Ramsay thought of
something he had read, 'A man is innocent until proven guilty.' Maybe
Hans and Pieter believed that sincerely, while the hot-headed Baptiste
was ready to strike at anything at all.
Ramsay felt a rising admiration for his partners. "What must we do?" he
asked.
"I doubt if they'll strike by day," Hans said. "If they come, it will be
in the night. We'll make three watches, and alternate on them. That way
they cannot surprise us."
"Suppose they come?"
Hans shrugged eloquently. "Then we will fight and fight hard, for it is
certain that no one else will do our fighting for us. Do either of you
have a choice as to watches?"
Nobody had a choice. Hans broke three straws of different lengths,
concealed them in the palm of his hand, and held them out. They drew,
and compared straws. Pieter had the shortest, the first watch, Ramsay
the second and Hans the third. Hans looked thoughtfully at the
twilight-softened lake. "Pieter, do you want to go out at seven and
stay until eleven?"
"Yaah."
"Good. Ramsay, stay out until about two and awaken me."
"All right."
Ramsay ate the excellent supper Marta had prepared, listened idly to the
chatter of Tradin' Jack, who knew what had happened and was nervous
because of it, and went upstairs to bed. In spite of his inner tension
and his excitement, his head had scarcely touched the pillow when he
dozed off. A moment later, or so it seemed, Pieter was touching his
shoulder.
"It's time."
"I ... Huh? Oh, yes."
Ramsay came fully awake, and Pieter lighted the candle in his room. Its
beams sparkled brightly on the shining barrel of the muzzle-loading
fowling-piece Pieter carried. Of a huge bore, the gun was charged with
black powder and loaded with lead slugs. Ramsay shuddered as he accepted
it. Such a gun would be sure to work great havoc among anything it was
shot at, but its recoil alone would probably set a mule back on its
haunches.
"Anything happen?" Ramsay whispered.
"Nothing," Pieter said. "Nobody came. The lake is calm and the boat
awaits you on the beach."
"I'll see you in the morning."
"Good luck."
His shoes in one hand and the shotgun in the other, Ramsay stole quietly
down the stairs and out the back door. He stopped to put his shoes on,
and looked around him.
A pale moon shone through disheveled clouds that gave the sky the
appearance of a man sadly in need of a hair-cut, and the faintest
suspicion of a breeze kicked up small wavelets. Asleep on the ridge
pole, Captain Klaus was a dull, shapeless blob in the night sky. Ramsay
cradled the shotgun in his right elbow and walked down to the beach.
The pound boat had wedged itself lightly against the sand. Ramsay put
the anchor back in, carefully laid the shotgun on the rower's seat, and
stood in the stern until he had tilted the craft from its mooring.
Sitting down, with a vigorous stroke of the oars he sent the boat
farther into the lake.
In the bay a fish jumped out of water, and the sound of its falling back
made a tinkling splash. Ramsay, dipping his oars quietly, steered toward
the first pound net they had set. At intervals he halted to rest on the
oars. There were no sounds save those that should have been present.
Except for him and the pound boat, the lake seemed deserted. Lingering
in the shadows, Ramsay circled the net and saw nothing. He started
toward another of their pound nets.
They had kept the seine busy, taken good catches from their pound nets,
and turned most of their money back into additional equipment. They were
getting ahead and setting themselves up in the fishing business. By next
year they should have everything they needed. They would not have to buy
any nets, or boats, and could begin to enjoy the profits they were
earning.
Ramsay found himself thinking of Devil Chad. Fishing was very hard work,
and expensive, but whoever did it well could hope for a fine future.
Lake Michigan was a vast reservoir of riches, and they were to be used.
There was room for all, but so was there room in Three Points. Devil
Chad wanted that for himself. Who but Devil Chad could now be plotting
to seize the Lake Michigan fisheries?
Ramsay shrugged such thoughts away. Out here on the lake he seemed able
to think with great clarity, and he knew that Hans and Pieter were
right. They must not lash out in thoughtless anger and hit at Devil Chad
because he was the logical one to raid their nets. They must have proof,
and strike as hard as possible when they struck.
Ramsay visited all three pound nets, and rowed back to the first one.
The lake remained calm and unruffled. When he thought it was two
o'clock--the night was divided into one watch of four hours and two of
three each--he went in to rouse Hans. At half-past five, when they ate
breakfast, Hans had nothing to report. If pirates were out to get all
nets, certainly they had not bothered theirs.
Late that afternoon, when the fishing was done and Ramsay, much to the
amusement of Hans and Pieter, had carried six more big sturgeon to the
pond, Hans hitched the black horse and invited Ramsay to go with him to
Three Points. Captain Klaus, as usual, flew to the back of the cart and
perched where he could caress Hans with his bill. Hans turned the little
horse down the road leading to Tom Nedley's. Ramsay stirred with
interest.
Big Tom Nedley came out of his shed, greeted them, and looked doubtfully
at the little cart. He glanced from it to a long oaken beam that was
supported on wooden horses. When he looked again at Hans, his voice and
manner were almost accusing. "You aim to drag that piece of oak?"
"You think I'm a fool?" Hans challenged.
"Didn't think you'd drag it." Tom Nedley seemed relieved. "There ain't
another piece of oak like that one in Wisconsin. How do you aim to get
it home?"
"You have an extra pair of wheels and an axle?"
"Sure, but ..."
"Ha! Bring me a wrench!"
The wrench in his hands, Hans set to work unbolting the clamps that held
the body on Pieter's two-wheeled cart. He lifted the body and seat off,
leaving the horse hitched only to the wheels and the axle that joined
them.
Hans looked triumphantly at Tom Nedley, and the boatbuilder scratched
his head. "You needn't think you're so smart. I'd of thought of that
myself afore I let you drag that timber."
"Why didn't you?"
While Tom brought another pair of wheels, Ramsay looked at the solid
chunk of oak. About twenty-six feet long, it was very fine-grained and
it hadn't a crack or flaw throughout its length--fully seasoned, so that
not a drop of sap remained in it. Even Ramsay, whose knowledge of wood
was limited, could tell that this was an exceptionally fine chunk of
oak. Hans and Tom Nedley seemed to look upon it as they would have
looked upon some valuable jewel. Hans patted it affectionately.
"Stronger than steel!" he said fondly. "Can you not imagine what a boat
the _Spray II_ will be?"
Tom Nedley said, "Building from that, you cannot fail."
For a moment Hans was wistful, as though he had gone back in memory to
the first _Spray_.
Tom Nedley brought another set of wheels, rolled them into place, and
covered the bare axle with a soft blanket. He used another blanket to
pad the axle to which the horse was hitched, and Hans steered the horse
into position. Hans, Tom and Ramsay lifted one end of the oaken beam
onto the rear wheels. Ramsay helped lift the other end onto the other
set of wheels, and stood aside while Hans lashed both with ropes.
Ramsay watched interestedly. Hans used his ropes to permit flexibility,
while at the same time he took no chances on their chafing or breaking.
Apparently fishermen could do anything with ropes. Ramsay tied the
unbolted seat and body to the top of the oaken beam. Hans took the
little horse's bridle and led him carefully back to the road. Mounted on
its four wheels, the long oaken beam swayed and turned.
Leading the little horse, careful of everything that lay in front,
behind and on both sides, Hans set a very slow pace. It was as though
the beam were a very fragile thing that might break should it brush even
the smallest tree. Actually, if it hit one hard, it would have broken
any small tree in its path and rocked the larger ones. Hans continued to
treat it as though it were a very delicate thing.
Destined to be the keel of the _Spray II_, when they reached Pieter's
house the beam was lovingly set up on three scaffoldings made of
four-by-sixes and arranged near the lake. Hans patted it as lovingly as
he would have stroked a favorite dog. "We have a start!" he said
happily.
"Why do we need another boat?" Ramsay queried.
"For setting gill nets," Hans replied. "You are not a fisherman unless
you know how to set a gill net, and you cannot set a gill net unless you
have a proper Mackinaw boat." He petted the oaken beam again. "As
responsive as a canoe it shall be, but as strong as a pound boat! This
one shall not break no matter what happens. The lake will not breed a
storm that it will be unable to ride out."
That night Ramsay's was the first watch. He rowed the pound boat from
one to another of their three pound nets. No strange vessel disturbed
the lake, no hostile creature approached. Ramsay gave his watch over to
Hans, and slept until dawn. They fished, processed their catch and
loaded thirty thousand pounds of whitefish onto the _Jackson_ when she
nosed into their pier.
Ramsay went with Hans and Pieter to a place where some mighty cedar
trees, that had grown for centuries, had been cut when the snow was
deep. Their weathered stumps thrust six feet or more above the green
foliage that surrounded them, and Hans chose very carefully. He wanted
only those stumps with a fine, closely knit grain, those which, even in
death, showed no cracks or flaws. He found three of which he approved,
and Ramsay and Pieter used a cross-cut saw to cut them off very close to
the earth. Ramsay began to understand the project in Hans' mind.
Because of weather conditions, pound nets, at the very most, could be
used for only about three to four months out of every year. The seine,
though under no circumstances would Hans fish in the spawning season,
could be dragged in until the bay froze. But gill nets could be used
for seven or eight months if one had a proper boat, and Hans wanted to
build one that would ride out any storm.
It was not to be an ordinary Mackinaw boat, but one such as Lake
Michigan had never seen. Its oaken keel had been chosen with an eye to
the heaviest seas and the ice that speckled those seas in spring or
fall. Though some fishermen used cedar planking for the ribbing of their
boats, and steamed it until it could be bent into the desired shape,
Hans intended to cut his directly from cedar stumps that had already
endured five hundred years and ten thousand storms. Then the _Spray II_
would be sheathed with the best possible cedar planking and calked with
the best obtainable oakum, or rope soaked in tar.
They would not float her this season. Neither effort nor expense were to
be spared in the building of the _Spray II_, and constructing her
properly would be a winter's job. But as soon as the ice broke next year
she would be ready to float, and they would be ready to set their gill
nets.
Ramsay grinned fleetingly as he tossed bushels of ground corn into the
pond so that the numerous sturgeon he had imprisoned there would have
enough to eat. It seemed so very long ago that he had thrown in with
Hans and Pieter and decided to become a fisherman, and he still hadn't
two silver dollars to jingle in his pocket. Not one day, scarcely one
hour had been free of grueling labor. But they had two pound boats,
three pound nets, had bought another seine, and with spring they would
have the _Spray II_. In addition, there was enough of the season left,
so that they should be able to catch plenty of fish before either ice
or the spawning period curtailed operations. That would give them enough
money to buy gill nets, as well as anything else they needed. None of
the four partners would come out of this season with money in their
pockets. They would own a sufficient amount of equipment for next year,
and much of what they earned then would be profit.
That night Ramsay took the third watch. He rowed softly from one pound
net to the other, always keeping in the shadows so that there was small
danger of his being noticed. He had been out about an hour, and had two
more to go, when he saw a boat approaching.
It came from the north, Three Points, and its row locks were so well
greased that not the faintest sound came from them. The oarsman was
expert; he dipped and raised his oars so that there was no splashing.
Ramsay raised the shot gun. He leveled it.
Unseen by the other boatmen, he lurked in the shadows and let them pass.
Ramsay was somewhat surprised to see them give a pound net a wide berth
and head into the bay. He followed, rowing his own boat silently while
he tried to discern the others' intentions. There were at least four,
and perhaps five, men in the other boat and they were going toward the
pier. Ramsay let them draw ahead, then circled around them and as fast
as he could without making any noise, he rowed straight toward the
beach. Grounding his boat, he stepped out. He was aware of the other
boat being drawn up cautiously.
He walked toward the nocturnal visitors until he was within a
half-dozen rods. He could see them now, clustered about the pier. Two
started for the barrels and the barreled fish. There was a faint
whispering. Ramsay waited to hear no more.
Had these people been well-intentioned, they would not be so secretive.
Plainly they were up to no good.
Ramsay pointed the shotgun toward the sky--he had no wish to kill
anyone--braced the stock against his shoulder, and pressed the trigger.
The gun belched its load of leaden pellets, and red flame flashed from
the muzzle. Ramsay shouted as loudly as he could. "Pieter! Hans!"
Dropping the shotgun on the sand beach, he rushed forward. The two men
who had started toward the barrels and barreled fish came running back.
Ramsay glared his anger.
Though he could not be positive because it was too dark to identify
anything or anyone positively, he thought that the man who stood just a
little to one side of the rest was Joe Mannis, the body-watcher. Ramsay
swerved toward him, sent his doubled fist into the other's stomach, and
heard a mighty '_whoosh_' as he knocked the wind out of his enemy. Up at
the house a door slammed.
Then a club or blackjack collided soddenly with the side of Ramsay's
head and set him reeling. He stumbled forward, feeling a little foolish
because all the strength had left him. Without being sure that he did
so, he sat down on the sand and blinked owlishly at the night visitors.
Dimly he was aware of the fact that they were launching their boat and
that he must stop them, but he did not know how to do so.
A nightgown flapping about his legs and a tasseled red cap on his head,
Hans Van Doorst appeared on the beach. A pair of trousers hastily
strapped about his own nightgown, Pieter followed. Both men looked
quietly at the retreating boat, which they might have followed and would
have followed had not Ramsay needed help. They lifted him to his feet.
"What happened?" Hans asked quietly.
"I ... They came while I was out on the lake, but they didn't bother
the nets. They rowed right into the pier, and I don't know what they
wanted."
"Did you recognize any of them?"
"I think Joe Mannis was one."
"Devil Chad?"
Ramsay said positively, "He was not among them. I would have recognized
him."
"Did you shoot at them?"
"No, I shot to attract you and Pieter."
"Well, that's all right, too. They won't be back tonight, or likely any
other night. Come on."
They helped Ramsay into the house, bathed his head and put him to bed.
He awoke to a mist-filled morning.
No breath of air stirred. Visibility was almost non-existent; the mist
was so heavy that it almost hid the lake. Ramsay, with all the
elasticity of youth, had recovered quickly from last night's incident
and he had a good appetite for the breakfast Marta had prepared.
Then Marta tossed her head defiantly. "All of you have been away," she
announced, "and you have done many things. I have been nowhere and I
have not done anything. But today I go to Three Points to shop."
"Sure," Pieter said. "I'll hitch the horse for you."
They cheered Marta on her way and went down to cast the seine. The pound
nets, having been visited within the past two days, would not again be
visited today. Aside from that, they had seined tons of whitefish and
sturgeon out of the bay in front of Pieter's house. Naturally the
catches were growing smaller. If they didn't take the seine too far out,
and set it shallow, three men could work the windlasses.
Then, just as they were ready to fish, and just about when Marta should
have reached Three Points, a man on a lathered horse came pounding down
the sand beach. He drew his tired mount up. "Quick!" he gasped. "An
accident! Marta is badly hurt!"
CHAPTER TEN
_THE GREAT FISH_
The great White Sturgeon was not, in the truest sense of the word, a
native of the lake. More years ago than any living thing could remember,
he had been born, along with thousands of brothers and sisters, halfway
up one of the many rivers that emptied into the lake. The sturgeon
remembered little about that time, but just the same it had helped to
shape him and make him what he was.
The spawning sturgeon, a vast number of them, had started up the river
together. It was a journey as old as the lake itself. Side by side they
swam, in such numbers and so many evenly-spaced layers that none of the
many Indians who fished along the river was able to thrust his spear
without striking a sturgeon. Preying bears, otter, panthers, lynx and
other creatures that liked fish, thronged the river's banks and struck
at the horde as it passed. So little did all their raids combined matter
that it was as though they had taken nothing. No creature that wanted
one lacked a sturgeon to eat. But the great mass of fish, impelled by
the desperate necessity of laying their eggs in the river, swam on.
Only when miles were behind them and they were about a third of the way
to the river's source, did the vast schools start to thin out. Then it
was not because their enemies took too many, though they caught a great
number. The schools started to lessen because many, too exhausted to go
farther or content with spawning grounds already reached, dropped behind
to spawn.
Finally only a few, not necessarily the biggest but invariably the most
vigorous, were left. Day after day, night after night, stopping only to
rest or feed, they went on up the virgin river. Buck deer, drinking, saw
the fleeting shadows pass, snorted and leaped skittishly away. Drinking
buffalo raised their shaggy heads and, with water dribbling from their
muzzles, stared after the migrating fish.
Everything seemed, in some small way, to sense the mystery that went
with the swimming sturgeon. They were part of the abundance of this
wealthy land, and when they were through spawning, that abundance would
be increased. The very presence of the fish was within itself a promise
that more were to follow.
Finally there were only half a dozen sturgeon left.
One was a very strong female whose spawn-swollen body even now contained
the egg, the cell, that was to be the great White Sturgeon. Swimming
close beside her was an equally vigorous male. All the sturgeon that had
been able to come this far were among the finest and best.
They stopped in a quiet pool which, within itself, was almost a little
lake. A third of a mile wide by a mile and a half long, the pool rolled
smoothly down an almost level course. It was shaded on either side by
gloomy pines that marched like soldiers in disordered rank for a very
great distance. There were no grunting buffalo here, though an
occasional white-tailed deer tripped daintily down to drink from the
sweet, unpolluted water.
On either side of the pool was a mat of green sedges and water-lilies,
and in them a great horde of ducks were rearing their young. They
skittered foolishly over the water, seeming to pay no attention to
anything save the sheer joy of being alive. Now and then the water
beneath them would dimple and ripple in widening circles towards either
bank; and when it did, invariably there would be one less duckling.
Nothing paid any attention whatever to such casualties. Life teemed in
the pool, and there life also fed on life. It was meant to be, and the
mighty pike that lived in the pool had to eat, too.
Weary, but far from exhausted, the female carrying the White
Sturgeon-to-be pushed herself into the sedges and lay quietly while she
rid herself of the burden that she had carried so far. A million or more
eggs she left there, and almost before she was finished two little pike
that made their home in the sedges had started gobbling them up.
The female sturgeon paid absolutely no attention, and neither did her
mate, when he came to fertilize the eggs. They were here to do, and knew
how to do, only one thing. Finished, they had no thought as to what
might happen next. The two sturgeon swam back into the pool and rested
before beginning their long return journey to the great lake. But they
had chosen wisely and well.
Almost before the parent fish left, a mink that had long had his eye on
the small pike swam quietly down to take one while it was feeding. The
other one fled. Though other things came to eat them, in due time what
remained of the spawn hatched. The White Sturgeon was the first to
appear.
The baby fish came of strong parents, so that there were almost no
infertile eggs, but such inroads had already been made among them that
not one in twenty ever knew life. Immediately they were singled out by
hungry enemies.
The White Sturgeon should have died first for, though all his brothers
and sisters were almost the color of the water in which they found
birth, he was distinctly different. He was lighter--perhaps a throwback
to some distant age when all sturgeon were white--and thus he was the
easiest to see. But he seemed to have been born with compensating
factors.
When a foot-long bass, a very monster of a thing compared with the baby
sturgeon, swam among them, they scattered in wild panic. The feeding
bass had only to snap here and there to get all he wanted, but the White
Sturgeon did not flee with the rest. Instead, he sank down beside a
cattail and did not move. A tiny cloud of mud-colored water drifted
around and covered him.
Thus, from the very first, the White Sturgeon seemed to have a keener
brain, or a sharper instinct, that made up for his distinctive coloring.
Though he should have been the first to die, he did not die. He learned
his lessons well, and saw how many of his brothers and sisters perished.
Thus he discovered how to stay alive.
For weeks he lived near his birthplace, swimming scarcely two yards from
it and feeding on minute particles of both vegetable and animal life.
Most of his time he spent feeding, and he grew very fast. Not until
encroaching winter drove him there did he move out into the pool.
Most of the ducks were gone before the first thin shell ice formed on
the borders of the pool, and those that lingered after that flew out
with the first snow. The snow blew in from the north on the heels of an
unseasonably early winter wind, and the White Sturgeon saw the mighty
pines heaped with feathery snow. Snow lay deep on the ground, and the
deer that came down to the pool seemed almost jet-black against its
virginal whiteness.
Lingering in the shallows, the White Sturgeon held very still. His was
the accumulated wisdom of ages. Ancestors almost exactly like him had
swum in antediluvian seas when huge, scaley monsters roamed the earth,
and perhaps the White Sturgeon knew that, as long as he held still near
the snow-covered bank, he would be hard to see. Or perhaps he merely
found the snow, his own color matched at last, interesting.
Right after the snow stopped there was a spell of sub-zero weather that
threw a sheathing of ice clear across the pool and froze the shallows to
the very bottom. Only then did the White Sturgeon move out of them.
He did not move far because it was not necessary to move far, and anyway
the great pike lingered in the center of the pool. Almost one third jaw,
the pikes' mouths were edged with needle-sharp teeth that never let go
and never failed to rip what they seized. Of the young sturgeon that
lived until fall, perhaps two hundred and fifty in all, the pike had
half before the winter was well set. The rest were too wary to be easy
prey.
All winter long, living on the edge of the ice and finding all the food
he needed in the soft mud floor of the pool, the White Sturgeon led a
solitary existence. But it was not a lonely life because, as yet, it was
not in him to be lonely. All he knew, and all he had to know, was that
he must survive. Every effort was bent to that end.
In the spring, shortly after the ice broke up and moved sluggishly down
the river, the White Sturgeon followed it. With him went three of his
brothers and two sisters, and if more than that had survived he did not
know about them or where they were. Nor did he care. In his life there
was no room for or meaning to affection; he traveled with his brothers
and sisters merely because, like him, they too were going down the
river.
The journey was not at all hurried. The White Sturgeon, who by this time
knew much more about the various arts of survival than he had known when
he left the pool, passed the next winter in another, smaller pool, less
than two miles from his birthplace. He chose the pool largely because it
was the home of a vast number of fish smaller than he, and they offered
an easy living to the pike, bass and other things that lived by eating
fish. Grown fat and sluggish in the midst of super-abundance, these
predators were not inclined to chase anything that cared to avoid them
or to work at all for their living. All they had to do was lie still and
sooner or later the living would come to them.
For his part, the White Sturgeon had no desire to hurt anything. His
sole wish was to be left alone, so he could peacefully pursue his own
path of destiny. He grubbed in the mud for his food and idled when he
was not eating. But, because he had a prodigious appetite, he was eating
most of the time. As a consequence, he continued to grow very rapidly.
Again and again, while he pursued his lazy journey down the river, the
White Sturgeon saw the lake sturgeon swim past him as they headed
upstream toward the spawning grounds. Swimming strongly, they came in
huge schools. Spent from the spawning, they swam slowly past him on
their way back to the lake.
Vaguely the White Sturgeon identified himself with these fish. Never did
he have more than a passing wish to join them. He wanted only to
continue his leisurely trip down the river, and time meant nothing at
all.
Though the White Sturgeon did not realize it, everything was part of a
mighty pattern and a vast scheme. Though there had never been a time
when he was not in danger, the river had not been an unkind school.
There he had learned how to avoid his enemies and how to become the
powerful fish which he must be were he to live. Then the river gave him
his last test.
He was near the mouth, only a few miles from the lake, when he suddenly
found himself face to face with a monstrous pike. The pike in the pool
of his birth were big, but they were dwarfed by this one. Out of the
shadows he came, a long, sinewy thing with the heart of a tiger and the
jaws of a pike. Even wolves' jaws are not more terrible.
The White Sturgeon did as he always did when danger threatened; he held
very still. But this time it was futile because the pike had already
seen him. Thus the thing which must never happen, did happen. The White
Sturgeon came face to face with danger in its deadliest form. If he
lived through this, then never again would he have to fear an enemy that
swam in the water.
Suddenly the pike whirled, flipped a contemptuous tail, and drifted back
into the shadows out of which he had come. He was not afraid; no pike is
ever afraid of anything, but the White Sturgeon was nearly as large as
he and even the pike never killed wantonly, or destroyed that which he
could not eat. The White Sturgeon swam on. He had graduated with honors
from the river's school, and he seemed to know it. For the first time
since his birth, a mighty restlessness gripped him.
Not again did he linger in the pools, or stop to feed for a week or a
month wherever he found a rich feeding bed. Urgings and commands within
him that had been passive were suddenly active.
With all this, he remained a harmless fish. Never born to battle, he had
no wish to fight and he did not abandon all his hard-won caution. If the
pike had not hurt him, nothing that swam in the river or lake would hurt
him; but the White Sturgeon retained a fear of those creatures not born
of the water. Aliens, they would not abide by the creed of the water.
While heeding a sudden and great wish to get out of the river and into
the lake, the White Sturgeon stayed far from both river banks.
A ghost figure in the murky water, he shot out of the river's mouth and
into the cold lake. For a while he sported like a dolphin, rising to
the surface, showing his white back, and diving.
An Indian who was spearing fish from a canoe stared his astonishment.
Trembling, he sheathed his spear and paddled back to his encampment. He
had seen the White Sturgeon, the Ghost Fish, and that night a mighty
storm knocked down a big pine near the Indian's camp. Two people were
killed when it fell.
Knowing nothing of this, lying contentedly in thirty feet of water where
he was aware of the storm only because his fine and deep senses made him
aware of everything that occurred above, the White Sturgeon grubbed for
food in the lake's bottom.
The next time his tribe left the lake to rush up the river, the White
Sturgeon journeyed with them. He went because he must, because it was a
call even stronger than hunger and he could not resist it. The strongest
of sturgeon, he stayed in the fore-front of the spawning horde and still
remained away from the banks. The few Indians who saw him were so
astonished that they forgot to strike with their spears, and he never
even came close to the prowling bears and other beasts that waxed so fat
when the migrating sturgeon came back to spawn.
Guided by the most precise of instincts, the White Sturgeon went exactly
to that spawning bed in the sedges where he was born, and fertilized the
eggs that a female left there. Wan and spent, caring for nothing, once
his main purpose in life had been realized, he turned and swam back into
the lake. That was now his home.
Again and again the White Sturgeon went up the river with his kind. Only
once, in all the trips he made, was he in real danger, and that time an
Indian's spear scratched his side. The Indian, fishing with two
companions, promptly fell into the river and drowned.
Thus the legend of the White Sturgeon grew. Born in a red man's fertile
mind, it was handed from red man to white and distorted in the transfer.
Now none could trace its origin and none knew exactly how it had begun.
Lake men knew only of the White Sturgeon, and he had learned much of
men. But he lived in the present, not the past.
Years had elapsed since Lake Michigan was shadowed only by canoes. Now
there were the Mackinaw boats, the pound boats, the churning
side-wheelers and the rowboats. Because it was his affair to know
everything that went on in the lake, the White Sturgeon knew them all.
He knew also that it was good to rest in the lake's gentler places. Not
in years had he rushed up the river with his spawning comrades. The
fires of his youth had long since been quenched, and besides, he was now
far too big to travel up any river. Perhaps the same quirk of nature
that had granted him his pigment had given him his size. Other sturgeon
were thought to be huge when they attained a weight of two hundred and
fifty pounds. The White Sturgeon weighed almost a thousand pounds.
He was still a gentle creature, though the sudden angers of age were apt
to seize him, and on the morning that Ramsay, Pieter and Hans were
called to Three Points, the Sturgeon was feeding quietly in the tunnel
of the first pound net they had set. He stopped feeding when he sensed
an approaching boat.
It was a Mackinaw boat, used for setting gill nets, and it was shrouded
in mist that sat like a fleecy blanket upon the lake. The White Sturgeon
lay very still. He was not afraid but he had no wish to be disturbed,
and if he remained very quiet, perhaps he would not be bothered. He was
aware of something coming into the lake and of the boat's withdrawal
into the shrouding mist.
The White Sturgeon decided to move, but when he tried to do so he found
his way blocked. A gill net was stretched across the entrance to the
pound net, effectively preventing anything outside from getting in or
anything inside from getting out, and the White Sturgeon was trapped by
it.
Gently he nosed against the gill net, seeking a way through. When none
offered, he swam a little ways and tried again. A third, a fourth and a
fifth time he sought escape. There was none, and the White Sturgeon's
anger flared.
He flung himself against the gill net, felt it cling to his mighty body,
and twisted about. A hundred yards to one side, in a weak place, the net
ripped completely in half. The White Sturgeon threshed and twisted until
he had reduced the entrapping folds to a mass of linen thread.
Segments of the ruined net clung to him as he swam away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
_FISHERMAN'S LUCK_
The horse that had galloped from Three Points to Pieter's farm in order
to bring news of Marta's misfortune was too spent to gallop back. Nor
could he carry more than one man, even if he had not been spent. Ramsay,
Pieter and Hans left horse and rider at the farm, while they started up
the beach. For a short distance they stayed together. Then Ramsay, the
youngest and best winded of the three, drew ahead.
A cold dread and a great fear gnawed at him as he alternately walked and
trotted. Marta had become like a beloved sister to him, and the
messenger carried no news except that she was injured. How or why, he
had not said. Ramsay glanced back over his shoulder to see if his
companions were keeping up with him, and discovered that they were lost
in the mist. In any event the day would have been unpleasant. There was
just the right weather combination to make it so--a hint of rain
combined with warm air to drape the fog over everything. And there was
no indication that anything would change. Somehow it seemed just the day
to get bad news.
Ramsay lengthened out to trot again, and then increased his trot to a
run. He was breathing hard, but far from exhausted, and with a little
surprise he realized that he would not have been able to travel so far
without halting, or so fast, when he first came to Wisconsin. A
fisherman's life had toughened him immeasurably. Once more he slowed
down and looked around to see if Pieter and Hans were in sight. They
were not. He walked until he was rested, then trotted into Three Points.
As though there was something in the village that drove it back, the
mist had not invaded there. It was on all sides so thick that the lake
could not be seen and the trees were ghost shapes, half-concealed and
half-disclosed. Most of Three Points was at work, but the few passers-by
on the street glanced curiously at Ramsay as he swung past them. He saw
the little black horse, tied to a hitching post in front of the general
store.
He bounded up the wooden steps, pushed the door open and entered. Marta,
the lower part of her left leg encased in a clean white bandage, was
sitting on a chair. She turned astonished eyes on him. "Ramsay!"
"Are you all right?" he gasped.
"Why ... Of course, I'm all right!"
"You're not hurt?"
"A scratch!" She sniffed disdainfully. "Just a scratch! I stumbled when
I stepped out of the cart. Ach! Such a clumsy one I was!"
The storekeeper's wife, obviously the one who had bandaged Marta's leg,
smiled her reassurance. "It is not bad," she said.
"Oh!" Ramsay felt a moment's clumsiness because he could think of
nothing to say, and again he exclaimed, "Oh!"
Panting hard, deep concern written on their faces, Hans and Pieter came
into the store. Marta's surprised eyes opened still wider. "I thought
you boys were fishing!"
"We--we had to come in for some more twine," Ramsay said somewhat
lamely.
"Three of you?"
"Yaah," Hans, never slow to understand, smiled with affected laziness.
"You know us men, Marta. There wouldn't one of us stay there and work
while another was loafing in Three Points."
"That's right." Slow Pieter finally understood that there was more here
than met the eye. "How'd you hurt yourself, Marta?"
The wondering gaze of the storekeeper and his wife were upon them now.
Still puzzled, Marta glanced covertly at the three men. Ramsay looked at
the storekeeper's wife.
"You should have sent somebody to tell us she was hurt."
"But," the storekeeper's wife was completely bewildered, "she is not
hurt."
"What's the matter?" Marta seemed worried now.
"Nothing," Hans answered blandly. "Nothing at all. We just decided to
have a holiday in Three Points."
"Go long!" Marta scoffed. "Men! They're bigger babies than babies are!"
"Be sure to bring us some twine," Hans said.
"Oh, sure. That I will do."
"Good."
All three men were smiling easily. But as soon as they left the store
and were out of Marta's sight, the smiles faded and their faces became
grim and intent.
"Who was the man who told us she was hurt?" Ramsay asked.
Pieter shook his head, and Hans said, "I never saw him before and I
don't expect to see him again. Probably he was riding into Milwaukee
anyway, and somebody gave him a dollar to report an accident."
Ramsay nodded. Hans, as usual, was logical and there could be only one
answer. Somebody was indeed out to capture the fishing on Lake Michigan.
They had started by destroying Baptiste's nets and now they were moving
against Ramsay and his friends. But they knew well the prowess of the
three and had no wish to strike while they were present. Marta's
reported accident had been only a ruse to draw them away.
Ramsay started toward the sand beach, but Hans laid a restraining hand
on his shoulder. "Wait!"
"We'd better get back and look to our nets."
"There is time, and we'd better not go blindly."
"What are we going to do?"
Hans said grimly, "Find the constable and ask him to accompany us. Then,
if there is trouble, and I expect it, we will have the law with us
rather than against us."
"Suppose the constable doesn't care to come along?"
"He'll come," Hans promised.
They strolled down the street, stopping in various places, until they
found Jake Hillis, the constable Devil Chad had put in office, in the
Lake House. The woman who had given Ramsay the steak and then made him
wash dishes to pay for it, looked up and smiled. "Hello."
"Hi!" Ramsay grinned.
"You didn't run, after all."
"Nope. I didn't."
The constable, standing at the bar, turned around to face the three. He
hooked both thumbs in his belt, letting his fingers dangle. His right
hand, Ramsay could not help seeing, was not too far from the pistol that
swung from his belt. There was no readable expression on his face, but
the woman, who knew him well, went hastily into another room.
Flanked by Ramsay and Pieter, Hans walked directly up to the constable.
"We have something," he said softly, "that demands your attention."
"What is it?"
"It has to do with nets and a raid upon them."
"I got no authority over what happens on Lake Michigan."
"Nevertheless, we need a good, honest man of the law with us. And we
will pay you well enough."
Jake Hillis shook his head. "I can't go off on any wild goose chases. My
duty is to protect this town."
Hans' voice softened even more. "I am asking you again to come with us."
The constable's right thumb slipped from his belt and his hand dropped
to the butt of the revolver. His fingers curled around it. As though by
accident, Pieter stumbled forward. Strong enough to stop a bull in its
tracks, Pieter wrapped his own steel fingers around the constable's
right wrist, and when they disengaged the pistol was in Pieter's hand.
"Excuse me!" he said contritely. "I am so clumsy!"
"Well?" Hans inquired.
Jake Hillis looked from one to the other. He was like a drum which
almost always must sound the cadence someone else beats. Strength was
the only force he recognized, and now he saw himself surrounded by
strong, determined men. For a moment he struggled with himself. Then
"I'll go," he said.
Hans responded graciously, "Thank you. We knew that you would come as
soon as you understood the reason in it."
"Here's your pistol." Pieter extended the weapon.
"I got to warn you," the constable pronounced, "that I am going to hold
you responsible for anything that happens here while I am away. And I
better tell you that I won't put up with any law-breaking."
"Good!" Hans said. "You are a conscientious man!"
The mist dipped and twisted about them as they started down the sand
beach toward Pieter's farm. Ramsay tried to find answers to the many
questions in his mind. Certainly somebody had lured them away from their
fishing gear. Who had done so? Was Devil Chad involved? If so, why did
Jake Hillis accompany them at all? Certainly the servant would not
willingly provoke a fight with the master. If Devil Chad was the leader
of the pirates, did he trust his minion so little that he had told him
nothing?
Ramsay shrugged: they would have to wait and find out.
Reaching the farm, Pieter entered the house to get the shotgun and a
pair of exquisitely carved pistols which Ramsay had never seen before.
Dueling pistols, they looked like, and Ramsay glanced curiously at
Pieter. The man was anything except stolid, yet he never spoke of his
past and of what had really brought him across the Atlantic Ocean to
this wild inland sea. Ramsay dismissed the thought. In this country it
was often just as well to forget a man's past or that he had ever had a
past.
Jake Hillis looked narrowly as Pieter handed Hans a pistol, kept one for
himself and gave the shotgun to Ramsay. "I don't hold with shooting
scrapes!" he said. "And I don't want any part of 'em!"
"There'll be none," Hans assured him, "unless we are shot at first."
They launched a pound boat, and Hans took the rower's seat. Jake Hillis
sat beside Pieter and Ramsay crouched to one side. A shiver ran through
him. The mist seemed to be settling in even more thickly; they had
scarcely left the shore when they were unable to see it. From the top of
the house, the bedraggled Captain Klaus squawked his protest at such
weather.
Hans rowed swiftly but there was no trace of hesitation in his manner,
and Ramsay marveled. The mist was heavy enough to cut visibility to
almost nothing, but Hans steered as certainly as he would have on the
sunniest of days. He seemed to know the lake so intimately that, no
matter what happened, he could still find his way. They reached the
first pound net, rowed around it. Ramsay sighed with relief.
If pirates had come to raid, they had not yet touched this net. Ramsay
shifted his position, and Jake Hillis stirred uneasily. Then, almost
beside the boat, the water rippled and the White Sturgeon surfaced for
a moment. Nearly the color of the mist, he lay quietly on top of the
water, then dived.
Hans' low laughter rippled. "We have a friend!" he said.
They were near the second pound net now, and Ramsay gripped his shotgun
fiercely. He could see nothing, but something seemed to be present. It
was a half-sensed threat, like an unseen tiger crouching in the darkness
beside a campfire. They saw the spiles of the second pound net rising
like a ghost's fingers. Slowly Hans started rowing around it.
Then Ramsay glanced behind him and snapped the shotgun to his shoulder.
From shorewards another mist-wreathed craft appeared. It was a Mackinaw
boat, like the _Spray_, and the men on her were only half seen in the
heavy overcast. Ramsay breathed a warning, "Watch it!"
Hans let the boat drift and took the pistol in his hand. Almost
carelessly, as though there was no hurry about anything at all, Pieter
did likewise. Jake Hillis drew his breath sharply. The two boats came
closer together, and Ramsay recognized Joe Mannis. There were also three
nondescript loafers of the riff-raff type who are always found on any
frontier and who will do anything for money. But Ramsay centered his
gaze on the fifth man in the Mackinaw boat.
There could be no mistaking him, even in the mist. It was Devil Chad.
The other boat came nearer and was much easier to see. Ramsay felt a
cold chill seize him. All the men in the boat were armed with shotguns,
and they could sweep the pound boat from one end to the other if there
was to be a fight. Ramsay glanced at Jake Hillis. The constable was
sitting quietly, tense and strained, but he did not seem to be afraid.
Devil Chad's bellow blasted, "What are you doin' here?"
Ramsay heard Hans' low laugh and his quiet, "The man is most uncivil."
"Don't get smart with me!" Devil Chad threatened. "You come to rob our
net, didn't you?"
Hans, surprised, made a momentary slip. "Your net?"
"Yes, our net! You come to rob it like you robbed all the rest!" Chad's
expressionless eyes pierced Jake Hillis like daggers. "What are you
doin' here?"
Hans answered calmly. "He is here as our guest, and at our invitation.
Now let us hear some more about 'your' net."
"You know what I mean! Touch it an' we start shootin'!"
"But we haven't touched anything," Hans said smilingly. He turned to
Jake Hillis. "Have we?"
Jake Hillis, too dull-witted for quick evasion, said, "No, you haven't."
Cold rage mounted within Ramsay. He swung his shotgun so that the muzzle
centered squarely on Devil Chad. If it came to a gun battle, he decided
grimly, his arch-enemy would at least be shot at.
Hans, unruffled, took command. "Where is your net? Show us."
"Right here."
Ramsay heard the mockery in Hans' voice. "And I suppose that it is a
gill net?"
"How'd you know that?" Devil Chad challenged.
"I gazed into my crystal ball," Hans said smoothly, "and I discovered
that, when one fisherman wishes to eliminate a competitor, he can
always stretch a gill net across the tunnel of a pound net. There is
certain to be a battle, and whoever survives controls the fishing."
Ramsay began to understand. Fishing on Lake Michigan was governed by no
enforceable law but only by the ethics of the fishermen themselves. Most
of them were ethical; when one found a good fishing ground, others
usually respected his rights. But there was no law that said they had to
respect them. Should one fisherman care to trespass on the rights of
another, he could always find some way to provoke a quarrel. Then,
regardless of anything else that happened, he could say that he was only
trying to protect his property or claim in some other way that his was a
just quarrel. Few people would be able to prove to the contrary.
Then a blue-and-white buoy, a marker used on a gill net, floated into
sight. Hans saw it, too, and again his voice was mocking. "Is that the
net you mean?"
There were subdued voices on the Mackinaw boat. Joe Mannis put his
shotgun down and stepped to the bow of the boat with a gaff hook in his
hand. He lay prone, stabbed with the gaff, and hooked the buoy. Foot by
foot he reeled in thirty yards of tattered gill net. Hans' scornful
laughter rolled like a barrel through the mist and bounded back in
echoes. Ramsay, highly amused, echoed Hans.
"Find your other buoy!" Hans called. "Pull it in, take it home, and
repair your gill net! But do not again set it on our fishing grounds!"
The Mackinaw boat floated into the mist. Ramsay saw the baffled rage on
Devil Chad's face. But mostly he was aware of the contempt of Hans for
Devil Chad.
"Here!" Hans called. "You're missing a man!" He turned to Jake Hillis.
The constable glowered back, like a stupid horse.
"Want to swim over and join your little friends?" Hans invited.
"No."
"Well, we brought you out from the sand. We'll take you back to the
sand."
Hans' shoulders were shaking with silent mirth as he bent his back to
the pound boat's oars. He steered in to the pier they had built, and
expertly nosed the boat in to its landing. A mist-draped wraith, Marta,
awaited them. "What happened?" she queried anxiously.
"Nothing," Pieter assured her.
"A great deal," Hans corrected. "They caught the White Sturgeon, for no
other fish in the lake could have wrecked a net so completely. I told
you we have a friend."
He took a pouch from his pocket, counted five silver dollars from it,
and dropped them into Jake Hillis' hand. Captain Klaus flew down from
the house top to alight on Hans' shoulder. "_Quark!_" he squawked.
As though he understood perfectly, Hans said, "That is right, my little
one." And to Jake Hillis he said, "If you see them, tell them not to
come again."
Deliberately turning his back on the constable, Hans stared out over the
lake. Then Jake Hillis was gone, and somehow it was as though he had
never even been with them. Ramsay waited expectantly. Hans turned away
from his intent study of the lake, and he was frowning as though there
was some complicated problem which he must solve. Yet when he spoke, his
voice betrayed nothing abnormal and there was no sign that he might have
been under the least strain. "Perhaps it would be well not to fish again
today. That is a shame, for the season draws to a close and we cannot
fish much longer, anyway. Still, we have done all that it is necessary
to do, and next year we will be well-situated. We will have gear and
tackle. I go to work on the boat."
Ramsay asked, "Do you think they will come again?"
Hans answered deliberately, "I do not think so, but no man may say for
certain. They are not without determined and intelligent leadership. If
he does come again, he will come hard and directly at us. He will not
bother with the nets. There is no need to keep a patrol on the lake
tonight."
Without another word Hans turned on his heel and strode off to where the
_Spray II_ was supported on its blocks. Ramsay went into the barn,
shouldered a hundred-pound sack of cornmeal, and carried it to the pond
in which he had imprisoned almost countless sturgeon. With both hands he
cast the ground corn into the pool, and returned for another sack, and
another. Then he stood with the last empty sack limp in his hands, idly
watching the pond.
It had been an exciting summer, the most adventurous and most satisfying
he could remember, but it must soon end.
Already there was a hint of frost in the air, and frost meant that the
whitefish would soon spawn. Nothing could persuade Hans to fish in the
spawning season, when every fish caught meant the loss of perhaps ten
that might be. Even if Hans would have fished, autumn meant storms when
none but a fool would venture onto the lake in a small boat.
Ramsay turned slowly away from the pond. He wandered over to where Hans
was working on the _Spray II_. It was to be a Mackinaw boat, somewhat
like a canoe, and it was to be used for setting gill nets. These, Ramsay
understood, could be set almost as soon as the ice went out.
Handy with almost any sort of tool, Hans himself had fashioned a wood
vise that turned on a wooden gear. He had a section of cedar stump
clamped in the vise, and with a rasp and a fine-toothed saw he was
painstakingly fashioning a rib for the _Spray II_. Unhurried, a true
artist, he shaped one side of the rib to the other. When he had
finished, it was a perfect thing, so evenly balanced that a feather's
weight on either side might have unbalanced it. Ramsay wandered away,
satisfied. The _Spray II_ was to be no ordinary vessel. There would not
be another Mackinaw boat on Lake Michigan to match it.
Restlessly Ramsay worked on the seine until Marta called them. He ate,
went to bed, and dropped into his usual instant deep slumber.
At first he was vaguely irritated because noises in the night disturbed
him. Then he identified those sounds as the crying of an alarmed sea
gull. Captain Klaus, on top of the roof, was vehemently protesting
something. Ramsay became aware of a strange, unreal sunrise reflecting
through his bedroom window.
Fully awake, he rushed to the window, and saw that, down on the beach,
all their boats were burning fiercely.
CHAPTER TWELVE
_THE POND_
Captain Klaus made a swooping flight that carried him out toward the
burning boats. Frightened by a puff of smoke, he flew back to the top of
the house and continued to call querulously.
For a moment Ramsay stood still, petrified by the spectacle. Then his
shout alarmed the house. "Hans! Pieter!"
By the light that flickered through his window he sprang for his
clothing and hastily pulled his trousers on. Letting the tails and front
hang out, he donned his shirt and put shoes on his bare feet. He was
aware of muffled cries echoing from the rest of the house, and a lighted
candle flared in the hall.
He rushed out to meet Hans coming from his bedroom, and a second later
Pieter's door flew open. Only half-awake and less than half-dressed, the
latter blinked like a sleepy dog in the candle's little light.
Marta peered uneasily over his shoulder. "What is it?"
"The boats are burning!" Ramsay gasped.
With a mighty, outraged lion's roar, Pieter came fully awake and sprang
toward the stairs. For one brief second Ramsay was aware of Marta's
face, dead-white, then he leaped to follow Pieter. Holding the candle
aloft, Hans followed. Again the Dutch fisherman seemed to take complete
command of the situation. There was anger in his voice but no trace of
panic when he warned the other two, "Slowly! Go slowly!"
His hand on the kitchen door, Pieter halted. Ramsay paused uncertainly
behind him, and Hans blew the candle out. The Dutch fisherman had
weathered so many savage storms that he seemed to know exactly what to
do, no matter what the crisis. Ramsay watched and approved. He must
learn to be more like Hans and to rule the emergencies that arose rather
than let them rule him.
Hans spoke again, "Let us not go like sheep to the slaughter. If they
came again, they are probably armed and they may shoot. Pieter, get the
guns."
Pieter shuffled off to the dark kitchen and came back. Ramsay felt the
familiar shotgun being pressed into his hands, and he knew that Hans and
Pieter each had a pistol. Because that seemed the thing to do, Ramsay
waited until Hans acted. The Dutch fisherman spoke again, and his voice
remained unruffled. "We cannot tell who or what is out there. Until we
discover exactly, keep out of the light cast by the burning boats. Do
not use your guns unless they shoot first. Then shoot to kill. Come on."
Silent as a shadow, Hans slipped into the blackness that reigned at the
back of the house. Pieter followed, while Ramsay brought up the rear. He
shivered, but only part of his chill was caused by the cold night. This
afternoon on the pound boat he had felt only tense excitement. But then
Hans and Pieter had backed him and their presence had been a very real
thing. Now, in the night, he was almost completely unaware of them. It
was as though he stood completely alone.
Ramsay felt his way along the rear wall of the house to the corner, and
there the darkness was broken by the glare from the burning boats.
Ramsay crept up beside Hans and peered around the corner.
The mist was gone, and a sharp breeze had sprung up in its wake. Every
night, when the fishing was done, or any time at all when they weren't
being used, the pound boats were pulled far up on the shore. Casting a
circle of light over the water, the burning boats illuminated the rising
waves whose whitecaps broke and fell. A fierce storm was in the making.
Ramsay's fear gave way to terrible anger. The wind from the lake would
have fanned the flames anyway, but obviously, before they had been set
on fire, the two pound boats had been coated with tar, pitch, or
something else that would burn hard and assure their complete
destruction. They were already charred beyond the faintest hope of
salvation. Ramsay gritted his teeth.
Hans left the house and swung back, away from the lake, on a course that
would keep him in the shadows. Ramsay followed, and he was aware of
Pieter following him. There was not the least sign of the raiders or of
the boat they might have come in. Ramsay hesitated. Perhaps they had
done their work and fled, or perhaps they were lurking in ambush near
the burning boats. Five shotguns could be ready to cut down whoever
came.
Then Ramsay set all his doubts at rest. He knew what he must do.
There could no longer be any question but that this was Devil Chad's
work. He controlled everything around Three Points that made any money.
He was out to gain control of the fishing, too, and he was not a man who
would leave any job half-done. Failing to provoke a fight because the
White Sturgeon had ruined his gill net, he had taken the direct
approach. Beyond any doubt he would be able to produce any number of
witnesses who would swear that Hans, Ramsay and Pieter were the
aggressors. Ramsay knew what he was going to do about this.
"Take the shotgun," he whispered, and pressed the weapon upon Pieter.
"But ..."
"Take it," Ramsay repeated.
Leaving the shotgun with the bewildered Pieter, he dropped to the ground
and wormed farther away from the circle of light. Into the shadows he
went, then on toward the lake. Now he did not know where Hans and Pieter
were or what they were doing, but he was positive that they would take
any action necessary when the time came. He no longer felt alone.
This was a thing that could never be settled with guns but must be
slugged out toe to toe and man to man. The fishing was worthwhile, and
any man who would get and keep anything worthwhile had to be ready to
fight for it. If Devil Chad had already fled, tomorrow they must go into
Three Points and seek him out.
Ramsay halted, peering around. He could see nothing clearly. The flames
had died down and there was only dimness, filled with varying shadows
that were most difficult to identify. But what was that down at the edge
of the lake?
It seemed to rise and fall with the rising and falling waves. Most of
the shadows were there one second and flitted away the next, but this
did not flit away, and after another thirty seconds Ramsay was fairly
sure that it was a Mackinaw boat, anchored out in the lake. Its crew had
waded ashore from it and, when and if they ran, they would wade back to
it.
Ramsay began a slow, steady crawl toward the anchored craft. The burning
pound boats flared brightly, seeming to ring him with a halo of light.
He shrank back, certain he could be seen, then as the glare subsided,
crawled forward again. If he could see no one in the darkness, neither
could anyone see him.
He was within thirty yards of the lake now, and he no longer gave a
thought to Hans and Pieter. He was sure only that they would be present
when they were needed and that his way was the right one. There could be
no compromise with destruction and no lingering aftermath of this
outrage. Whatever was to be settled had to be settled completely, and
tonight.
Ramsay was certain now that the thing he saw was an anchored Mackinaw
boat. It remained in the same place, rising and falling with the waves,
and no nebulous shadow did that. Intent on the boat, he was not aware of
the man until he heard his voice, "Gus, you fool! I said be quiet!"
Ramsay held very still, and a rising exultation flooded him. He had
heard that voice before, and there was only one just like it. He had
heard it first when he stood on the _Holter_--that seemed years ago. He
knew that he lay within feet of Devil Chad, who was indeed waiting in
ambush with his men.
The angry voice repeated, "Be quiet! They'll come!"
Ramsay rose and rushed forward, flinging himself into this combat with
all the fierce joy of a newly awakened warrior. He had given a full
summer, an important part of his life, to building up a career which he
greatly loved. Now he stood ready to defend it with his muscles, his
heart and, if need be, his life.
He saw Devil Chad rise uncertainly to meet him, not knowing whether he
was friend or foe. He aimed a mighty kick at the shotgun in the other's
hands, and he knew that he had knocked it completely out of his enemy's
grasp. He felt a fresh burst of wind on his cheek and, strangely, knew
all about the storm that was brewing on the great lake. He closed with
his enemy.
Devil Chad and his men had come to destroy and, if necessary, to kill.
But they had counted on Ramsay, Pieter and Hans, charging angrily up the
sand beach. Outlined against the burning boats, they would be at a
tremendous disadvantage. A hail of lead from five shotguns could cut
them down in almost no time. They had their choice between surrendering
or dying for what they believed in.
It had never occurred to Devil Chad or his men that an enemy would dare
crawl into their very midst. The darkness that had befriended them now
became their enemy. Nobody dared shoot because nobody could possibly be
certain whether he were shooting at friend or foe. Ramsay edged up to
Devil Chad and swung a tremendous upper-cut to the other's jaw.
He missed, felt his knuckles graze his enemy's cheek, and stepped back
for a new try. Only vaguely was he aware of muffled exclamations that
became shouts and then grunts. He knew that Pieter and Hans had closed
in. Then it was as though he and Devil Chad were alone.
This was something that had to be. The seed that made the task necessary
had been planted long ago, on the _Holter_. It had taken deep root
during the fight in the tannery. Since that time Ramsay had met every
challenge the lake had flung at him. Now he would have to prove himself
capable of meeting the challenges men flung at him. Then, and only then,
could he survive.
Ramsay's lips framed a grin. He had taken the risk, and he had won. For
one brief second somebody might have shot him down, then the opportunity
was forever gone. Now nobody dared shoot. He found a firm footing on the
lake sand.
Ramsay dodged a terrific blow that would have knocked him flat had it
connected, and went back in with his arms swinging. He sunk a left and a
right to his adversary's midriff and heard Devil Chad's breath whistle
out of his clenched lips. He drew back to strike again.
Like the bull he was, Devil Chad charged recklessly. He took Ramsay's
stinging blows without flinching, and the boy had to give ground. But it
was not lost ground, and for one brief, glorious second Ramsay stood and
traded blows. His head rocked, but he took what the other had to offer
and returned it in full measure. Then he learned his mistake.
A pair of gigantic arms were flung about his middle. They tightened like
a vise, bending him backward and seeming to compress him into a space
not half-big enough. His spine was ready to crack, and lights danced in
his head. He gasped for air.
The many lessons he had been taught by Hans Van Doorst came to his
rescue. Four months ago, and perhaps even one month ago, the fight would
have been ended by that terrific bear hug. But now Ramsay remembered in
time that he was not fighting a man alone but a man who was part beast.
And it was never wise to lose one's head. A man must always adapt
himself and fight like a beast if he fought with one.
Summoning all his remaining strength, Ramsay drew back his right foot
and sent his heavy shoe smashing into Devil Chad's shin. The fellow
relaxed his hold and staggered back into the darkness.
Ramsay stumbled away from him. Devil Chad was a bull, he remembered, and
he did not know about matadors. The next time he rushed, the boy stepped
aside and let his opponent's momentum carry him past. Ramsay's strength
and breath came back.
He became cool, able to reason coolly. Devil Chad outweighed him by
fifty pounds, so he must not close again. If he did not, and there were
no accidents, he, Ramsay, would win this fight. For the first time in
his life Devil Chad was fighting his equal.
Ramsay felt strength swell within him. It was the strength of the lake,
and it had flowed into his body through the numberless sturgeon he had
carried to the pond and from the many times he had helped bring in the
seine and from the many fish he had scooped from the raised pound nets.
He was no longer a boy but a man.
The burning pound boats were falling into embers now, and as the light
they cast receded the blackness of the night became more intense. Wind
keened in from the lake, and the waves assaulting the sand beach made
themselves heard.
Ramsay waded in, his fists flying. In the darkness he was aware of Devil
Chad coming to meet him, but his deception of his opponent was complete.
From the first, he had had no intention of meeting him squarely.
He stepped aside, lashing out with both fists as he did so, and felt
both of them collide soddenly with Devil Chad's chin. The latter
bellowed, swung his head and hooked viciously. But he hooked falsely,
for Ramsay was not there. His lithe body, dodging and twisting, now here
and now there, became like the cape that lures the bull to its doom.
Devil Chad swung and kicked, and often he struck his target. But he did
not strike hard enough to bring Ramsay down, and he could not again get
a grip with his giant arms, although he tried desperately.
Roaring wildly, he charged. But it was a blind, mad attack, directed
almost completely by rage and desperation.
Ramsay licked his upper lip, vaguely aware of the fact that he was
tasting his own blood but not caring. He felt no pain, and it was oddly
as though he sat on some high pinnacle from which he could watch himself
and direct himself. Both his fists lashed squarely into Devil Chad's
face, driven by all the strength in his hard, young body.
Devil Chad paused, as though bewildered, and Ramsay knew that he was
stunned. Not stopping, throwing some of his caution to the wind, he
followed up his advantage. His fists worked like cracking whips as he
struck again and again. Devil Chad spun around, took two halting steps,
and sank to one knee.
He remained there like some carved statue, and again Ramsay licked away
the blood that flowed down his face. Now, if he did the correct thing,
he would go in and end it with kicking feet. He would beat Devil Chad as
mercilessly as he had been beaten. But he did not.
He waited, cool and poised, while the other bowed before him. Only when
Devil Chad lurched to his feet and struck out drunkenly did Ramsay go in
again, and he went in with his fists. He beat a continuous, almost
unopposed tatto on his enemy's chin. The second time Devil Chad
collapsed he measured his full length on the sand, and he did not move
again.
Ramsay stood watching intently for several moments. He wanted to make
certain that he had met his enemy fairly and defeated him fairly. How
long he had been fighting he did not know. It seemed like a few seconds,
but it must have been much longer. He only knew that he had come out of
the battle stronger than he was when he went into it. He called, "Hans?"
"Here," the Dutch fisherman answered.
His voice was strained, but even now there was nothing of desperation in
it. Rather, it was a joyous voice. Ramsay turned toward it and saw
scuffling men. He approached them and reached out with groping hands
until he touched another man. It was neither Hans nor Pieter, and as
soon as he was sure of that he swung.
He felt a strong disappointment, for the heat of battle flared strong
within him and, instead of fighting back, the man merely collapsed on
the sand. Obviously he had already been manhandled by Hans and had
little strength left. Ramsay looked strangely at him, as though there
was something that should not be. Then he became aware of the fact that
dawn had come and he could see. He turned to help Hans or Pieter,
whichever needed it the most, and he turned just in time to see Hans hit
Joe Mannis so hard that the body-watcher flew into the air, described a
little backward whirl, and fell on the sand.
Hans stood, shaggy and huge, breathing hard, but unbeaten and
unbeatable. Moving over beside him, Ramsay felt that at last he was
worthy to stand there. Both watched while Pieter teased the single
remaining man, one of the hired ruffians who had helped set the gill
net, then slapped him resoundingly on both cheeks. As though he were
unworthy of further notice, Pieter whirled on his heel and left his foe.
The man went weaving up the beach into the lightening morning.
Hans grinned wryly at Ramsay. "Your face, it looks like a horse stepped
on it."
"You've got a couple of mosquito bites yourself."
"Yaah." Hans grinned again.
Ramsay said, "They got our boats."
Hans said, "They got our nets, too. Joe Mannis, he told me that when we
fought. They would get us, he said."
"They didn't."
"No, they didn't."
They turned at a sudden wooden scraping out on the lake, and saw the
Mackinaw boat under way. Beaten and bruised, Devil Chad crouched at the
oars. Hurriedly he sent the boat farther out, toward the open lake. They
watched as though this were some foreign sight of no interest whatever.
Hans walked over to prod Joe Mannis with the toe of his shoe. "Get up,"
he said.
Joe Mannis stirred and groaned. He opened his eyes, blinked stupidly and
raised himself on one hand. There was a deceptive gentleness in Hans'
words and tone, but Joe Mannis was not deceived. He knew that Hans meant
it when he said, "Come down the beach once more after this storm. You
will find something to interest only you. Then never let me see you
again. If I do, I will drown you in the lake."
Hans looked out on the lake, into the gathering storm and at the
receding Mackinaw boat. High waves were already clawing at it, and Devil
Chad was not yet out of the bay. Hans said, "He is not a fisherman. He
is not even a sailor. I myself would think twice about taking the
_Spray_ out now."
Near the boat something white, something not born of the rolling
whitecaps, appeared for a second and disappeared. Ramsay smiled softly.
He knew that he had again seen the White Sturgeon. He also knew what Joe
Mannis would find in the morning. Devil Chad.
The three partners walked back down the sand to the embers of the pound
boats. They stood near them, warming themselves in the last of the
fire. Ramsay prodded the sand with his toe.
They were right back where they had started. A whole summer's hard work
had gone to satisfy the greed and lust of one man. What they had left
was the seine, the row boat, the forming skeleton of the _Spray II_ and
the pier. Ramsay set his jaw. They could do it again. They had done it
once.
He looked toward the Mackinaw boat, and discovered that it had gone out
of the bay into the open lake. But his eyes were attracted by something
else on the horizon.
A moment later he identified it as a plume of smoke. Five minutes
afterward, storm-lashed but defiant, the _Jackson_ nosed out of the lake
into the sheltered bay. Manned by able seamen, sure of herself, the
_Jackson_ came up to her accustomed place at the pier. Ramsay, Hans and
Pieter caught her mooring ropes.
Resplendent in his uniform, little Captain Williamson came down his rope
ladder and strutted on the pier. "A blow," he said, as though a storm on
Lake Michigan meant nothing to him. "We'll tie up here until it's over,
then go back to Chicago. Have you got any fish?"
"Some," Ramsay admitted.
He thought of the ten barrels of whitefish that were ready for shipment,
and he watched Captain Williamson's face fall. The little captain
emitted a long sigh. "Some, eh? I was hoping for better news. Chicago's
growing like a weed in the sun, and it's hungry. Most of the fishermen
made their last shipments ten days ago. The markets are almost empty,
and even sturgeon's bringing five cents a pound."
For one brief second the storm clouds parted and the sun shone through.
Then the sky was again overcast and the storm leaped furiously. Ramsay
turned his shining face toward Hans and Pieter. The tons of sturgeon in
the pond ... At five cents a pound there would be more than enough
money to replace everything and to buy the finest planking for the
_Spray II_.
Ramsay said, "Save plenty of room on the _Jackson_. We'll need it."
On top of the ridge-pole, Captain Klaus fluttered his long wings and
curved his sinuous neck. As though he approved thoroughly he called,
"_Quark!_"
* * * * *
_Books by Jim Kjelgaard_
BIG RED
REBEL SIEGE
FOREST PATROL
BUCKSKIN BRIGADE
CHIP, THE DAM BUILDER
FIRE HUNTER
IRISH RED
KALAK OF THE ICE
A NOSE FOR TROUBLE
SNOW DOG
TRAILING TROUBLE
WILD TREK
THE SPELL OF THE WHITE STURGEON
THE EXPLORATIONS OF PERE MARQUETTE
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