_PARTNERS_
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 the _Spray_, 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.