The Spell of the White Sturgeon

by Jim Kjelgaard

  CHAPTER SIX

  _NEW VENTURE_

  Ramsay stirred sleepily and raised a restless hand to shield his eyesfrom the morning sun. Almost the whole night through, until the firstwaking birds had begun to chatter just outside his window, he had lainrestlessly awake. Just thinking of Hans Van Doorst, and fishing, had notpermitted him to sleep.

  Now, with the sun high, he was at last deep in slumber. Ramsay could notknow that Pieter had arisen shortly after the first birds and had themilking all finished, or that Hans Van Doorst sat in the kitchen, eatingthe hearty breakfast which Marta had prepared for him. He knew only thathe 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 rolledover in bed and covered his head with the quilt. Even that did not shutout 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 originatevery near the roof of the house, and he was puzzled. Then he identifiedthe various noises a sea gull makes. Ramsay slipped out of bed, pushedthe double windows open, and looked into a calm morning.

  There was a rustle of wings overhead and a flutter of feathers. CaptainKlaus took strong wing to circle the house. He swung back to alight onthe window ledge, and tilted his head sidewise while he regarded Ramsaywith bright, intelligent eyes. "_Qu-uark!_" he chattered.

  Ramsay grinned, but when he put out a hand to touch him Captain Klausagain took flight and sailed down to the now-calm lake. He alighted onthe shore, folded his wings across his back, and walked down the beachuntil he found a storm-killed perch. With the fish in his bill, he flewback to the house's ridge-pole to eat his breakfast while he awaited thereappearance of Hans Van Doorst.

  A little bit embarrassed, Ramsay dressed hurriedly. The working day inthis country began with dawn and ended with dark. Everything that neededdoing--and there was much to be done--had to be crowded into suchdaylight as there was, and there was never enough. Hurrying down thesteps leading to the kitchen, he saw Hans Van Doorst at the table. Martagreeted him pleasantly, "Good morning."

  "Good morning," Ramsay replied. "I overslept! I didn't mean to. Whydidn'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 heand the Dutch fisherman had something in common. They felt alike andthought alike. Hans Van Doorst had thanked Ramsay with his eyes forrescuing him, but not once had he spoken of it and not once had hementioned the wreck of the _Spray_. The boy was grateful for that; heknew that he would be embarrassed if his part in yesterday's incidentwere brought into the limelight.

  Marta busied herself at the big wood-burning stove, and Ramsayspeculated on the difficulties involved in just getting such a stoveinto this country. Marta laughed. "While I make you the breakfast, youlisten to the crazy tales the crazy fisherman tells you."

  Hans turned his twinkling eyes on Ramsay. "Marta is a good girl," hesaid. "A good Dutch girl. She thinks all men are crazy."

  "They all are," Marta said. "Especially you. What you need is a goodfarm and stay away from that wild lake."

  "Farms and me wouldn't get along, Marta." Hans laughed. "I told you I'ma fisherman."

  "Yaah? You lost everything with the _Spray_. How are you going to gofishing again?"

  Hans spread his two powerful hands. "These are what I had when Istarted. 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 lightjacket 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 tellinghim 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 tomilk your cows. No? To be sure, you get all the milk you can drink; butif you're lucky, Tradin' Jack Hammersly gives you maybe half of whatyour butter's worth. All winter long and all summer long you work forthose cows. A fisherman, now, he works for four months, justfour. . . ."

  Pieter said, "It sounds good!"

  "Pieter!" Marta broke in sharply. "You are _not_ going fishing!"

  Pieter wriggled uncomfortably. "Well," he said, "I can at least listento what the man says, can't I?"

  "One haul of the nets," Hans continued, "and maybe one thousand, maybetwo thousand pounds of whitefish. Never less than five hundred. For thatyou get six cents a pound in the Chicago market. You don't earn that onyour farm, and besides, fishing is a lot more fun. A smart Dutchmandon't have to tend cows."

  "_Uaah!_" Pieter breathed.

  "Pieter!" Marta said.

  Ramsay listened, dazzled by the prospects of a fisherman's life ascompared to any future a farmer might have. Determinedly Marta brought ahuge dish of wheat cakes and sausage over and thumped it firmly down onthe table.

  "Eat!" she commanded.

  The three gave all their attention to the food, and they did not speakwhile eating. Then Hans pushed his chair back.

  "If I am going to fish again, I must start," he announced. "First Iwill go down and see if there is any salvage."

  "We'll help you!" Pieter exclaimed. "My boat was not badly smashed. Alittle 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 hisown property, his very own property, is that fishing? Could anyone eventhink it was fishing? No. Come on."

  The three left the kitchen and walked down to the lake. Calm after thestorm that had raged across it, only little waves were washing in.Ramsay looked out at the rock, as though half expecting to see the_Spray_ still there, and saw nothing. Pieter gave a triumphant littleexclamation and waded into shallow water to pick up something thatbobbed back and forth.

  It was the carved Valkyrie maiden that had been the _Spray's_figurehead. Exquisitely and almost perfectly hand-carved, the woodenstatue leaned forward, as though she would embrace the whole lake to herbosom.

  Hans Van Doorst's eyes were soft as he took it from Pieter. "Mysweetheart!" he murmured.

  Captain Klaus winged down from the ridge pole of the house to alightnear them. Clucking softly to himself, happy because Hans was once morewith him, he followed the three men down the beach. Ramsay found a coilof rope, then another, and farther on was the _Spray's_ torn sail.Ramsay pointed out onto the lake.

  "About there is where we saw the White Sturgeon," he said.

  "I know," Hans Van Doorst murmured. "We saw him a half-dozen times."

  Ramsay looked at him, puzzled. Then, "The sailors told me he alwaysbrings bad luck."

  "The sailors!" Hans scoffed. "They know nothing about anything exceptmaybe how to stuff themselves with good whitefish that the fishermenbring them! The White Sturgeon noses his way to the top when a stormcomes, so he is bad luck? Do not believe it! He is good luck! He comesto the top so that he may show fishermen the way back to shore!"

  Ramsay grinned appreciatively. This, in spite of the fact that the Dutchfisherman's idea of the White Sturgeon bringing good luck was assuperstitious as the sailors' notion that he always brought bad, fittedin. 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? Intruth, 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 lookaround. Ramsay looked at him questionin
gly. Anything but stolid, theDutch fisherman had been bubbling over at the prospect of going fishingagain. Now he seemed melancholy, immersed within himself, and his wholeattention was given to the lake.

  Ramsay followed his gaze, but saw little. True, a vast number of smallaquatic worms had been washed ashore by the pounding waves. There musthave been countless millions of them, so many that they formed a livingcarpet as far up the beach as the waves had washed. The wriggling,writhing mass was now disentangling itself, and the worms that couldwere crawling back into the lake. A number of sea gulls and a number ofland birds were gorging themselves, and new birds arrived by the flock.They scarcely made a dent in the multitude of worms. Ramsay looked againat 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, butnever 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 younot imagine the vast amount remaining in the water? We are all richmen!"

  "You think so?" Pieter queried.

  "There is no doubt of it! The whitefish go where their food is! Theremust be countless tons of whitefish here at your very door step, andhere 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 ofother fish. But enough of this idle talk! I must have a net so we canstart 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, andbacked him between the shafts of Pieter's two-wheeled cart. Bubblinglike a boiling kettle, entirely happy, he started at a fast trot up thesand beach to Three Points. With a startled squawk, Captain Klaushurried to catch up. The tame sea gull settled affectionately on the rimof the cart's seat.

  As Ramsay watched him go, he felt a vast envy of the light-heartedfisherman. If ever he could go away like that, he thought, he would havelived life at its fullest. Not until he looked around did he discoverthat 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 tendingher poultry. Geese, chickens and ducks swarmed around her and pigeonsalighted on her shoulders. She kept her eyes on the men.

  As Ramsay and Pieter cleaned the cowbarn, both remained strangelysilent. Both thought of the Dutch fisherman. Then Pieter, who hadpromised to have a dressed pig ready for Tradin' Jack Hammersly, startedhoning 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 atweeds that had stolen a home in the growing corn. The work suddenlylacked any flavor whatever. Millions of worms, whitefish food, washed upon 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-morninglunch, 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 inbed. Those were his words."

  "Just talk. The lake's safe enough."

  "Yaah? Is that why Joe Mannis can make more money than anybody elsearound 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 thebarn Pieter had his butchered pig strung up on a block and tackle, andthe two men looked at each other. Both were waiting for Hans Van Doorstto return.

  About a half-hour before noon Captain Klaus soared back to hisaccustomed place on the house's ridge pole. A moment later the littleblack horse appeared on the beach, and Hans drove to the barn.

  Ramsay and Pieter, meeting him, stifled their astonishment. When Hansleft them, to all outward appearances he had been a normal person. Nowblood had dried on his nose and his right eye was puffy and streakedwith 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! Carefullydid I explain to that frog-mouthed Fontan, whose wife knits the bestpound nets on Lake Michigan, what I wanted. I know pound nets cost fivehundred dollars, but I was very careful to prove that we have untoldriches just waiting to be caught! As soon as we made some catches, Isaid, we would pay him his money, plus a bonus for his trouble. Fontanbecame abusive."

  "Then what?" Pieter said.

  "He hit me twice. Because of these thrice-cursed broken ribs I cannotmove as swiftly as I should. Then I hit him once, and the last I saw ofhim he was lying on one of his wife's pound nets. After that came theconstable who, as everybody knows, is merely another one of Devil Chad'splaythings, and said he would put me in jail. It was necessary to hitthe constable, too."

  Hans Van Doorst leaned against the side of the barn, glumly lost in hisown bitter thoughts. Coming from the house to meet Hans and sensing themen's moodiness, Marta fell silent beside her husband. Ramsay unhitchedthe little black horse, put him back into the corral, and hung theharness on its wooden pegs.

  After five minutes, Pieter Van Hooven broke the thick silence. "I do notknow whether or not it will be any good, perhaps not. But last year afisherman 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 notknow what happened to him, for he never came back and I have not seenhim since. Probably Joe Mannis got him. But before he took his leave heasked me to store for him a box of nets and ..."

  "A box of nets!" Hans Van Doorst's melancholy left him like a wind-blownpuff of feathers. He put an almost passionate arm about Pieter'sshoulders. "All is lost! All is gone! Then this--this miracle worker! Hetalks 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 withexcitement!"

  Pieter and Hans disappeared in the barn, and a moment later theyreappeared with a long, deep wooden box between them. Having lain in thebarn for a year, the box and its contents were thick with dust andspiders had woven their own gossamer nets everywhere. Hans Van Doorstpatted the dust away. He looked with ecstatic eyes, and he unfolded afew feet of the net. Ramsay saw that it was similar to the gill netinsofar as it had stones--sinkers--on one side and a place for floats onthe 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 itwas not made in Two Rivers. It was brought here by one of the Ohiofishermen, for that is the way they tie their meshes. Let us see somemore. I would say that it is about eight hundred feet long. That is notample; we still need good pound nets, but with it we may again gofishing. Help me, Pieter."

  Pieter and Hans dragged the box to a small tree, tied one end of theseine to the tree's trunk, and began to unwind the net toward anotherlittle tree. Ramsay saw how shrewdly the Dutch fisherman had guessed.The trees, within a few feet one way or the other, were just about eighthundred feet apart and Hans Van Doorst tied the other end of the seineto 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 walkthe length
of the seine as it lay on the ground. He kept his eyesdownward, and as he walked along he talked almost to himself. "A goodseine, yes, a good seine, but it has received hard use. Here is almostfive 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 asunken 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 howthe 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, andas he traveled he marked every hole and weak spot by telling himselfabout it. Reaching the end, he stood nervously tapping a finger againsthis forehead. "My hands are more accustomed to pulling seines thanmending them," he told the three. "Still, if we are to make the catch wecan 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 fora while with Pierre LeDou, and because there was nothing else to killtime, I helped Madame LeDou knit a gill net! This cannot be toodifferent!"

  "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 foranything 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 toform a standard--and at necessary intervals raised the seine to them sothat it was completely off the ground. Like a huge tennis net, brokenonly by the tripods, it stretched between the two trees. Ramsay stoodbeside it with a one and one-half inch meshboard--this mesh was threeinches--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 notsacrifice efficiency. More than ever fishing seemed to be an art withinitself, and if the seine were not perfectly made, then it was betterleft alone. A slipshod or hasty knot could cost them a hundred pounds offish, or even the seine itself. As Ramsay went along, he judged forhimself which parts needed repairing. Any mesh that seemed to be wornmust be replaced; a whole school of fish might follow each other througha single hole.

  For half an hour Hans stood watching him. Then, satisfied that Ramsayknew what he was about, he went off to cut new floats and place them ontop of the seine. A dozen times he went down to study the bay, lookingcarefully and judging for himself the depth at which they would find thelargest schools of whitefish. Coming back, he adjusted the stone sinkersaccordingly.

  Absorbed in his work, Ramsay gave no thought to the passage of timeuntil Marta called him for supper. As soon as he had finished eating, hereturned to the net. Darkness deepened and still he worked on.

  "Ach!" Marta said. "You'll kill yourself working! Can you not come innow?"

  "Just a little while. Bring me a lantern."

  Ramsay heard Hans Van Doorst murmur, "A fisherman, that one," and ayellow lantern glowed behind him. It was nothing more than a tallowcandle set in a glass case but, Ramsay thought, he really didn't need astronger light. So sensitive had his fingers become to the feel of thenet, and so expert was he in knitting new meshes, that, almost, he wouldhave been able to do it with his eyes closed. He worked on while, heldalternately by Hans and Pieter, the lantern moved with him. He forgotthe ache in his fingers and the weariness in his body. He knew only thatthe sooner the net was in good working order, the sooner they could gofishing.

  The pre-dawn birds were again singing when Ramsay finally bumped againstsomething and, so absorbed had he been in his work, it took him a momentto realize that it was the other tree. He held the mesh board in fingerswhich, strangely and suddenly, seemed to lack all nerve or feeling. Heblinked almost stupidly and stepped back.

  When he spoke, his words sounded almost silly. "Well," he said, "thereit is."

  "There indeed it is!" Hans chuckled. "And there it will be until, assoon as possible, we get it into the water. Come now and sleep, for withthe morning's sun I would have you go with me."

  Ramsay stumbled to his bedroom, took his shoes off, and without removingany of his other clothing, fell across the bed. Instantly he wassubmerged in exhausted slumber from which he was awakened by a gentlehand 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 thetime when any worker in this country should sleep. Hastily he sprang outof bed. "I'll be right with you!"

  "Compose yourself," said Hans Van Doorst, who had awakened him. "Thereis 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, hewas fully dressed. He put his shoes on and tied them, went outside towash at the wash stand, and came in to eat the breakfast Marta hadready. Scarcely noticing what he ate, he gulped it down.

  "Easy," Marta cautioned. "The stomach complaint you will be givingyourself!"

  "I must hurry! Hans is waiting for me!"

  "With men it is always hurry, especially when they go to do what theywish to do anyway. Aah! Only a man would give up a good farm to gofishing!"

  "Pieter has not given up his farm," Ramsay pointed out.

  "He will," Marta prophesied. "He will, and he will go fishing with youand 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. Hiswings calmly folded, Captain Klaus sat on the back of the seat. Ramsayclimbed up, and Hans slapped the reins over the horse's back. Theystarted up the sand beach--there was a corduroy road but the sand wassmoother--toward Three Points.

  Ramsay grinned impishly as they drove through the town, because he feltthe questioning glances of the towns people. Devil Chad controlled allthis, and Devil Chad had made it very clear that Ramsay was not wantedin Three Points. Maybe Hans wasn't wanted either but, as Pierre LeDouhad pointed out, the fishermen and farmers cared little what anyone elsethought. Ramsay looked about, hoping to see Devil Chad, but he wasnowhere in sight. A little disappointed, he relaxed beside Hans.

  They drove through the village and up a rutted little road that woundamong gloomy hemlocks. Ramsay saw a doe with a fawn at her side, staringat them. As they drew near the doe raised her white tail over her backand disappeared. Hans grinned at her.

  "They shoot the mammas with the babies," he said, "just like they do thepapas with the horns. There is no more right in that than there is innetting a spawning fish."

  "You mean because the babies will die?"

  "Yaah. Then, after there aren't any more deer, people just do notunderstand it. Some awful disease, they say, carried them off. They donot know that their own lack of sense carried them off. It is the samewith fish. Those who seine in the spawning season kill maybe two hundredfor every one they take. When there are not any more fish, they willinvent 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 youfind them in now. That is because so many of them are being caught. Formaybe ten thousand years they are filling the lake until now no fish ismore numerous. Yaah, for many years they were a food staple of theIndians. I myself have seen Indians spearing them, or shooting them withbows and arrows. Tribes came from as far as the Mississippi River tofish here. But a net fisherman takes more in one season than a wholetribe of Indians used to, and often the fishermen cannot even take careof what they catch. I have seen whitefish, good eating whitefi
sh,stacked like cordwood along the beach and left to rot there. I have seenthem fed to pigs. The best fishing along Lake Erie is already gone, dueto 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 fishermanwill catch perhaps a thousand whitefish, and maybe a hundred sturgeon,for every trout. Why? Because the whitefish and sturgeon eat trout spawnis part of the reason. When the whitefish and sturgeon are gone, thetrout will multiply until they are the big catch. If the trout are takenor die out, there will be something else. No. There will always befishing here, but it will be better when men learn to fish wisely andnot to take anything in the spawning season."

  "When is that?" Ramsay inquired.

  "Whitefish and trout both spawn in the fall, from the fifteenth ofOctober until the fifteenth of December. The sturgeon, I think they area river fish and that they go up the rivers to spawn. If ever the riversare closed, there will be many fewer sturgeon."

  The gloomy little road swerved back toward the lake. They broke out ofthe 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. Tiedto a stake in a patch of green grass, a sad-eyed brown cow munchedplacidly on a five-pound whitefish. Tied to the pier, a saucytwenty-six-foot Mackinaw boat, much like the _Spray_, bobbed up anddown. 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 snarledtoward them. Showing white teeth, foaming at the mouth, he hurledhimself straight at the visitors. Hans laughed and swung down from thecart, and as soon as he did the little black dog leaped about him to wagan almost furious welcome. Hans grinned and knelt to tickle the dog'sears.

  "Like most Frenchmen, you can do nothing unless you do it violently," hesoothed. "Where is your master?"

  The house's door opened and a man, whom at first Ramsay thought was aboy, flung himself out. Barely five feet tall, he was dressed inbreeches, leather leggings with colored fringes and a shirt that seemedto sport every color in the rainbow. He threw himself at Hans.

  "_Mon ami!_" he screamed. "My friend! It has been so long, so very longsince you honored us with a visit! Tell me what has kept you away for sovery 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 spiteof his small size, he was very strong. He looked frankly at the boy.

  "You have," he asked, "bought an interest in the _Spray_?"

  "The _Spray_ is no more," Hans informed him. "She went back to thelake."

  "Oh."

  For a moment Baptiste was very sober. Then both men laughed, as thoughthey 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 withpliant black ash hoops. We also need salt. We have a net and we have aboat."

  "That is all you need?" Baptiste seemed disappointed.

  "That is all."

  Baptiste turned and in rapid-fire French directed orders at three menwho were lingering near. At once they began to take barrels built tohold two hundred pounds of fish from a huge pile near the fishing shantyand 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 poorhome."

  "With pleasure," Hans agreed.

  They went into the house to meet Baptiste's wife, a sparkling littleblack-eyed French woman. Producing the inevitable jug, Baptiste filledthree gourds with fiery whisky. Hans and Baptiste drained theirs withone gulp. Ramsay nursed his, both men laughed at him. But the boy couldpartake of the delicious fish stew which Baptiste's wife prepared.

  A half-hour after Ramsay and Hans returned to the Van Hooven farm, awhite sail bloomed out in the bay. She was the _Bon Homme_, loadedhalfway up the mast with barrels and salt. Hans Van Doorst rubbed hishands in undisguised glee.

  "Now," he chuckled, "we go fishing!"