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 theSpray. 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 theSpray. 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 arenotgoing 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 theSpraystill 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 theSpray'sfigurehead. 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 theSpray'storn 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 theSpray, 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 theSpray?"
"TheSprayis 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 theBon 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!"
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 theSpray, 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.
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 theJackson, 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. TheJackson'sskipper 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 theJacksonfor 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. TheJacksonstill 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 theJackson, 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 theJackson, 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 theJacksoncame 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 theJacksonbetween 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, theJacksonbacked 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 theSpray, 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 theSpray?"
"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?"