CHAPTER SIX

_NEW VENTURE_

Ramsay stirred sleepily and raised a restless hand to shield his eyes from the morning sun. Almost the whole night through, until the first waking birds had begun to chatter just outside his window, he had lain restlessly awake. Just thinking of Hans Van Doorst, and fishing, had not permitted him to sleep.

Now, with the sun high, he was at last deep in slumber. Ramsay could not know that Pieter had arisen shortly after the first birds and had the milking all finished, or that Hans Van Doorst sat in the kitchen, eating the hearty breakfast which Marta had prepared for him. He knew only that he seemed to be hearing strange sounds.

There were throaty chucklings and gurglings and low-pitched laughter, and all of it was punctuated by raucous squawks. Troubled, Ramsay rolled over in bed and covered his head with the quilt. Even that did not shut out the sounds, and finally he came fully awake. Sleepy-eyed, tousle-haired, he sat up in bed.

For a moment he could not define the sounds, which seemed to originate very near the roof of the house, and he was puzzled. Then he identified the various noises a sea gull makes. Ramsay slipped out of bed, pushed the double windows open, and looked into a calm morning.

There was a rustle of wings overhead and a flutter of feathers. Captain Klaus took strong wing to circle the house. He swung back to alight on the window ledge, and tilted his head sidewise while he regarded Ramsay with bright, intelligent eyes. "_Qu-uark!_" he chattered.

Ramsay grinned, but when he put out a hand to touch him Captain Klaus again took flight and sailed down to the now-calm lake. He alighted on the shore, folded his wings across his back, and walked down the beach until he found a storm-killed perch. With the fish in his bill, he flew back to the house's ridge-pole to eat his breakfast while he awaited the reappearance of Hans Van Doorst.

A little bit embarrassed, Ramsay dressed hurriedly. The working day in this country began with dawn and ended with dark. Everything that needed doing--and there was much to be done--had to be crowded into such daylight as there was, and there was never enough. Hurrying down the steps leading to the kitchen, he saw Hans Van Doorst at the table. Marta greeted him pleasantly, "Good morning."

"Good morning," Ramsay replied. "I overslept! I didn't mean to. Why didn't somebody call me?"

"Yaah!" Marta laughed. "Pieter said not to. You earned your sleep, Pieter said. Sit down with Hans and have some breakfast."

Hans said, "Men who are not hungry are sick. Sit down."

Ramsay sat, and felt a free and easy sense of comradeship, as though he and the Dutch fisherman had something in common. They felt alike and thought alike. Hans Van Doorst had thanked Ramsay with his eyes for rescuing him, but not once had he spoken of it and not once had he mentioned the wreck of the _Spray_. The boy was grateful for that; he knew that he would be embarrassed if his part in yesterday's incident were brought into the limelight.

Marta busied herself at the big wood-burning stove, and Ramsay speculated on the difficulties involved in just getting such a stove into this country. Marta laughed. "While I make you the breakfast, you listen to the crazy tales the crazy fisherman tells you."

Hans turned his twinkling eyes on Ramsay. "Marta is a good girl," he said. "A good Dutch girl. She thinks all men are crazy."

"They all are," Marta said. "Especially you. What you need is a good farm and stay away from that wild lake."

"Farms and me wouldn't get along, Marta." Hans laughed. "I told you I'm a fisherman."

"Yaah? You lost everything with the _Spray_. How are you going to go fishing again?"

Hans spread his two powerful hands. "These are what I had when I started. These are what I have now."

"You need money, too. Money for nets, money for ..."

The door opened and Pieter came in for breakfast. Hanging his light jacket on a wooden peg in the hallway, he took his seat at the table.

"Why does Hans need so much money?" he asked.

"He says he's going fishing again." Marta sniffed. "I've been telling him that he should get a farm, and we can put him up until he gets one, and ..."

"Are you really going fishing?" Pieter broke in.

"That I am. I'm a fisherman. Now look, Pieter, you get up at dawn to milk your cows. No? To be sure, you get all the milk you can drink; but if you're lucky, Tradin' Jack Hammersly gives you maybe half of what your butter's worth. All winter long and all summer long you work for those cows. A fisherman, now, he works for four months, just four... ."

Pieter said, "It sounds good!"

"Pieter!" Marta broke in sharply. "You are _not_ going fishing!"

Pieter wriggled uncomfortably. "Well," he said, "I can at least listen to what the man says, can't I?"

"One haul of the nets," Hans continued, "and maybe one thousand, maybe two thousand pounds of whitefish. Never less than five hundred. For that you get six cents a pound in the Chicago market. You don't earn that on your farm, and besides, fishing is a lot more fun. A smart Dutchman don't have to tend cows."

"_Uaah!_" Pieter breathed.

"Pieter!" Marta said.

Ramsay listened, dazzled by the prospects of a fisherman's life as compared to any future a farmer might have. Determinedly Marta brought a huge dish of wheat cakes and sausage over and thumped it firmly down on the table.

"Eat!" she commanded.

The three gave all their attention to the food, and they did not speak while eating. Then Hans pushed his chair back.

"If I am going to fish again, I must start," he announced. "First I will go down and see if there is any salvage."

"We'll help you!" Pieter exclaimed. "My boat was not badly smashed. A little work and it will be good as new."

"Pieter!" Marta said. "You are not going fishing!"

"Now I ask you," Pieter said plaintively, "is helping a man pick up his own property, his very own property, is that fishing? Could anyone even think it was fishing? No. Come on."

The three left the kitchen and walked down to the lake. Calm after the storm that had raged across it, only little waves were washing in.

Ramsay looked out at the rock, as though half expecting to see the _Spray_ still there, and saw nothing. Pieter gave a triumphant little exclamation and waded into shallow water to pick up something that bobbed back and forth.

It was the carved Valkyrie maiden that had been the _Spray's_ figurehead. Exquisitely and almost perfectly hand-carved, the wooden statue leaned forward, as though she would embrace the whole lake to her bosom.

Hans Van Doorst's eyes were soft as he took it from Pieter. "My sweetheart!" he murmured.

Captain Klaus winged down from the ridge pole of the house to alight near them. Clucking softly to himself, happy because Hans was once more with him, he followed the three men down the beach. Ramsay found a coil of rope, then another, and farther on was the _Spray's_ torn sail.

Ramsay pointed out onto the lake.

"About there is where we saw the White Sturgeon," he said.

"I know," Hans Van Doorst murmured. "We saw him a half-dozen times."

Ramsay looked at him, puzzled. Then, "The sailors told me he always brings bad luck."

"The sailors!" Hans scoffed. "They know nothing about anything except maybe how to stuff themselves with good whitefish that the fishermen bring them! The White Sturgeon noses his way to the top when a storm comes, so he is bad luck? Do not believe it! He is good luck! He comes to the top so that he may show fishermen the way back to shore!"

Ramsay grinned appreciatively. This, in spite of the fact that the Dutch fisherman's idea of the White Sturgeon bringing good luck was as superstitious as the sailors' notion that he always brought bad, fitted in. It was what Hans should have said.

"How big is that sturgeon?" Ramsay asked.

"The Grandfather of all lake fish," Hans Van Doorst asserted solemnly.

"Have you not noticed that, like all grandfathers, he is white? In truth, I have never seen a bigger fish anywhere."