"No," Ramsay said bluntly. "Mr. Chadbourne and I did not see eye to eye.

In fact, three minutes after we met our fists were flying in each other's eyes."

"You fought Devil Chad?"

"I did, and got well-beaten."

Pieter said quietly, "Some day somebody will kill him."

"Some day somebody might."

"Eat," Pieter invited. He pushed a platter of eggs at the boy and forked a thick slice of home-cured ham onto his plate. Then he placed the dish of yellow butter where Ramsay could help himself and put a plate of feather-light fresh-baked rolls where he was able to reach it. Marta came softly in from the kitchen with a bowl of cold milk.

Ramsay ate, primly at first, then gave way to his enormous appetite.

Pieter served him another slice of ham. The boy took two more eggs and another roll, which he spread lavishly with butter. Sighing, unable to swallow another crumb, he pushed his plate back. Pieter looked gravely at him. "Do you have to go to Milwaukee?"

"No, I just thought I might find a job there."

"You can," Pieter assured him. "But if a job is what you want, a job is what I can give you. I can't pay you any money, at least until we have sold our fall crops, because we haven't any. But I can give you all you can eat, a good bed to sleep in, and I have some clothes that will fit you."

Ramsay said deliberately, "Devil Chad won't like you for that."

"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.

Pieter called the boy over, "Ramsay, this is Mr. Hammersly."

Mr. Hammersly, so-called, turned and thrust forth a huge hand. "Tradin'

Jack," he amended. "Tradin' Jack Hammersly. You need anythin', I got it. Fairer prices as you'll find in Three Points, Chicago, or Milwaukee.

Need a box of candy for that girl of yours, Ramsay?"

"I haven't any girl," Ramsay said.

"You'll have one," Tradin' Jack declared. "Every young buck like you needs a pert doe. Can't get along without 'em, I always say. Yup, you'll have one. When you get one, remember Tradin' Jack."

"I will," Ramsay promised.

While Tradin' Jack washed up at the stand beside the back door, Pieter led the gray horse to the barn, stripped it of its harness and loosed it with the little black horse. The two animals touched friendly noses.

Pieter returned, and all three went in to the groaning table which Marta had ready. It seemed a natural thing here, Ramsay observed, to expect all passing wayfarers to share whatever there was to be had. Gracefully Tradin' Jack lifted the tails of his long black coat and sat down.

"Left Milwaukee day before yesterday," he said. "Stopped off to see the Blounts, down at Blounts' Landin'...."

Marta and Pieter Van Hooven gave rapt attention, and even Ramsay found himself interested. Aside from being a trader, it appeared that Tradin'

Jack Hammersly was also a walking newspaper. He knew everything about everybody between Three Points and Milwaukee, and between Milwaukee and Kenosha. Endlessly he related tales of new babies, new weddings and new engagements. Tradin' Jack knew that Wilhelm Schmidt's horse had the colic but probably would recover, and that Mrs. Darmstedt, that would be the wife of Pete Darmstedt, had shot a black bear right in her own front yard.

There was nothing about the people he did not know and not much that he was unwilling to tell. Finished, he got down to business. "Any eggs for me, Marta?"

"Twenty dozen," she said, "all fresh."

"Fourteen cents a dozen," Tradin' Jack said promptly.

"Yaah," Marta, too, was bargaining now, "I can get that in Three Points."

"Take it in trade an' I'll allow you fifteen," Tradin' Jack said. "Got to keep my customers sweet."

Before he went to bed Tradin' Jack arranged with Pieter to have a butchered pig ready for him when he returned from Three Points the day after tomorrow. Two and a half cents a pound he would pay, or two and three-quarters if Pieter would take it in trade. He left with the Van Hoovens a tempting array of calico, ribbons, needles, pins, a new axe and hammer, a box of nails and other things which were always useful and always needed.

The next morning Ramsay roused himself out of bed at dawn to find Tradin' Jack already gone. He had sensed the storm that was approaching, Pieter said, and, if possible, he wanted to get into Three Points before it struck. Ramsay felt a strange uneasiness and an unrest. Going outside, he saw that yesterday's blue skies had given way to ominous masses of gray clouds. His uneasiness mounted.

Something terrible was being brewed within the giant lake, and shortly it would erupt. A strong wind sent high waves leaping up onto the shore. They fell back, only to be replaced with more waves. Ramsay shuddered.

If there was terror in this, there was also grandeur. The lake, angered, was a fearful and wonderful spectacle. It was a gargantuan thing which seemed to writhe in an agony which, somehow, was created by itself. A few drops of rain pattered down. The wind blew harder.

Pieter and Ramsay went to the barn to repair tools, and neither spoke as they stared through the barn's open door. The waves were raging now, launching endless attacks on the shore and always rolling back.