Hans said, "They got our nets, too. Joe Mannis, he told me that when we
fought. They would get us, he said."
"They didn't."
"No, they didn't."
They turned at a sudden wooden scraping out on the lake, and saw the
Mackinaw boat under way. Beaten and bruised, Devil Chad crouched at the
oars. Hurriedly he sent the boat farther out, toward the open lake. They
watched as though this were some foreign sight of no interest whatever.
Hans walked over to prod Joe Mannis with the toe of his shoe. "Get up,"
he said.
Joe Mannis stirred and groaned. He opened his eyes, blinked stupidly and
raised himself on one hand. There was a deceptive gentleness in Hans'
words and tone, but Joe Mannis was not deceived. He knew that Hans meant
it when he said, "Come down the beach once more after this storm. You
will find something to interest only you. Then never let me see you
again. If I do, I will drown you in the lake."
Hans looked out on the lake, into the gathering storm and at the
receding Mackinaw boat. High waves were already clawing at it, and Devil
Chad was not yet out of the bay. Hans said, "He is not a fisherman. He
is not even a sailor. I myself would think twice about taking the
_Spray_ out now."
Near the boat something white, something not born of the rolling
whitecaps, appeared for a second and disappeared. Ramsay smiled softly.
He knew that he had again seen the White Sturgeon. He also knew what Joe
Mannis would find in the morning. Devil Chad.
The three partners walked back down the sand to the embers of the pound
boats. They stood near them, warming themselves in the last of the
fire. Ramsay prodded the sand with his toe.
They were right back where they had started. A whole summer's hard work
had gone to satisfy the greed and lust of one man. What they had left
was the seine, the row boat, the forming skeleton of the _Spray II_ and
the pier. Ramsay set his jaw. They could do it again. They had done it
once.
He looked toward the Mackinaw boat, and discovered that it had gone out
of the bay into the open lake. But his eyes were attracted by something
else on the horizon.
A moment later he identified it as a plume of smoke. Five minutes
afterward, storm-lashed but defiant, the _Jackson_ nosed out of the lake
into the sheltered bay. Manned by able seamen, sure of herself, the
_Jackson_ came up to her accustomed place at the pier. Ramsay, Hans and
Pieter caught her mooring ropes.
Resplendent in his uniform, little Captain Williamson came down his rope
ladder and strutted on the pier. "A blow," he said, as though a storm on
Lake Michigan meant nothing to him. "We'll tie up here until it's over,
then go back to Chicago. Have you got any fish?"
"Some," Ramsay admitted.
He thought of the ten barrels of whitefish that were ready for shipment,
and he watched Captain Williamson's face fall. The little captain
emitted a long sigh. "Some, eh? I was hoping for better news. Chicago's
growing like a weed in the sun, and it's hungry. Most of the fishermen
made their last shipments ten days ago. The markets are almost empty,
and even sturgeon's bringing five cents a pound."
For one brief second the storm clouds parted and the sun shone through.
Then the sky was again overcast and the storm leaped furiously. Ramsay
turned his shining face toward Hans and Pieter. The tons of sturgeon in
the pond ... At five cents a pound there would be more than enough
money to replace everything and to buy the finest planking for the
_Spray II_.