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 ..."