"How far is Three Points?"
"Six miles. Just stay on the beach."
"Reckon I'll go up there then. I've got a job waiting for me at the
tannery. By the way, do you have any use for that horse?"
"A good horse can always be used on a farm. But I won't take him. I'll
keep him, and you can have him any time you want." Pieter Van Hooven
looked queerly at Ramsay. "You sure you want to go to Three Points?"
"I've got a job there, and I need it."
"Then go, but remember that nobody starves in Wisconsin. Marta and me,
we got no money but we got everything else. You don't like it in Three
Points, you might come back here?"
"I'll be glad to," Ramsay said, a little puzzled.
"Then do that, my friend."
Well-fed and rested, Ramsay walked alone up the sandy beach. Stay on the
sand, Pieter Van Hooven had advised him, and he couldn't go wrong. Three
Points, the tannery town, was right on the lake. Two hours after he left
the Van Hoovens, Ramsay reached the village.
Three Points nestled snugly in a gap which, only recently, had been
hacked out of the hemlock forest. Many big trees still stood on the edge
of town, and some right in the center; and most of the houses were built
of hemlock logs. There were a few, evidently belonging to Three Points'
wealthier residents, that were massively built and patterned after the
New England style of architecture.
There was no mistaking the tannery; the smell would have guided one
there, even if the mountains of hemlock bark piled all about had not.
Ramsay entered the long, low, shed-like building, and a man working at a
steaming vat looked up curiously. Ramsay approached him with "Who's the
boss man around here?"
"I am," an unseen man said.
Ramsay whirled to look at the man who had spoken, and he came face to
face with Devil Chad.