"Around here," and there was no air of braggadocio in Pieter's words,
"we don't much care what Devil Chad likes."
Ramsay looked hard at his host, and then the two young men grinned at
each other.
"You've got yourself a man," Ramsay said. "What do we do first?"
* * * * *
Hidden from the house by a jutting shoulder of land, Ramsay stood beside
the small lake on Pieter Van Hooven's property and peeled off his
clothes. All day long, interrupted in mid-morning by Marta, who brought
him a substantial lunch, at noon by a huge and delicious dinner and
again in mid-afternoon with a lunch, he had toiled in Pieter Van
Hooven's sprouting corn.
All day long the sun had beaten down and, though the lake shore was cool
enough, a man doing hard physical labor could easily work up a sweat.
But it was good. Ramsay had felt the sun's rays penetrate to and warm
the very marrow of his bones. In spite of the hard labor he had been
doing, few times in his life had he felt as agile and supple and wholly
alive as this.
He plunged headlong into the lake and came up gasping. The water was
cold, though not nearly as cold as the big lake; and after Ramsay's body
was adjusted to it, a delicious glow ran through his whole physical
being. He dived again, then climbed up on the soft grass to let the
lowering sun dry him before he put his clothes on.
He dressed slowly, happily, and now all his cares were behind him. This
was the place for him, and no longer did he have the slightest doubt
that he was going to like everything about it. Fresh and vigorous, the
day's toil washed away, he walked slowly down to Lake Michigan and
stared across it. Supper in half an hour, Pieter had said when he had
advised Ramsay to stop work and have a swim, and no more than half that
time had elapsed. The rest could profitably be spent in just looking at
this endlessly fascinating water.
Ramsay stared across the lake. More than ever it seemed a live creature
and one of many moods. Ramsay had seen it roaring-mad, and now he saw it
gentle as a lamb. There was scarcely a ripple anywhere. Absorbed in the
lake, Ramsay was aware of nothing else until a horse snorted very close
to him. When he whirled, he knew that he had seen the same horse and
rider before.
It was the body-watcher, Joe Mannis, and he was riding the
black-and-white horse which he had ridden when he had warned Ramsay away
from the drowned Captain Schultz and the deck hand. The huge cowboy hat
tilted precariously on his head and the blue jeans, apparently unwashed
in a good many months, clung tightly to his legs. Thick black hair
escaped from beneath the hat, and he looked Ramsay up and down. "What
are you doin' here?"
"What's it to you?"
"Well, nothin' I expect. Nothin' at all. But just don't bother me again
when I'm workin' at my trade."
"I won't," Ramsay promised, "unless I have a couple of pistols, too."
"Just don't bother me when I'm workin' at my trade," the other repeated,
"an' we'll get along fine."
"You think so?" Ramsay snapped.
Missing the challenge implied in Ramsay's words, Joe Mannis trotted his
horse up the sand beach toward Three Points. Ramsay looked without
interest at his retreating back. Joe Mannis was an unsavory man, he
decided, but unlike Devil Chad, he was a stupid man. Only when backed by
his pistols would Joe be much of a threat.
Ramsay pushed his drying hair back with his hands and went around to the
rear of the Van Hooven house. That was also a custom, it seemed. Formal
visitors, if there were any, might enter by the front door; but everyone
else went around to the rear. Obviously the visitor who had arrived
while Ramsay bathed and stood on the shore, was not formal.
He was a tall, gaunt man with a thin face and a hooked nose. Except for
a white shirt, the collar of which was adorned by a bright ribbon that
could hardly be called a tie, from his stovepipe hat to his shoes he was
dressed entirely in black. An outlandish rig, a four-wheeled cart with a
fringed top supported on four posts, stood in the yard. Its curtains
were rolled up, and the cart seemed to contain everything from wash tubs
to pins. Pieter and the stranger were unhitching a gray horse that stood
patiently between the cart's shafts.