"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!"
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, theBon Hommesailed 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 theBon 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 theSpray IIwill 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 firstSpray.
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 theSpray 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 theJacksonwhen 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 theSpray IIwould 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 theSpray 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 theSpray 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!"
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.
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 theSpray, 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."