"Sure. I'll even show you where there's some big cedar stumps that'll do for the ribbing."

"I already know," Hans said. "What we wish to have you do now is deliver a good pound boat to Pieter Van Hooven's place. Two hundred dollars?"

"Yup. But if you haven't the money ..."

"We have it," Hans assured him. He counted out some money and pressed it into Tom Nedley's hands. The big boatmaker looked both embarrassed and pleased. "Gosh! Thanks! Got your spiles driven?"

"Nope."

"For that you need two boats."

"Of that I am aware. But we do not have money to buy two."

"I'll get my brother, my cousin and their sons," Tom Nedley offered. "Be down in the mornin'."

"For that we will pay you."

"Aw, Hans ..."

"Take it." Hans grinned. "We are certain to get rich fishing but, if we don't, you will have something."

"Aw shucks ..."

"Take it!"

"We'll be there."

"Thanks," Hans said.

Mounting the cart, he turned the horse around and at a smart trot drove up into the village. Ramsay sat proudly erect, feeling strength like that of a young bull arise within him. This was the village from which he had been driven in disgrace by Devil Chad, but it was a village he dared return to. Any time he felt like it he would return to Three Points, and let Devil Chad meet him if he dared. Hans stopped the horse in front of a cottage which might have been an exact duplicate of the one occupied by Pierre and Madame LeDou.

Letting the horse stand, Hans leaped from the cart and faced Ramsay.

"This," he announced loudly, "is the home of Frog-Mouth Fontan, whose good wife is about to sell us a pound net. Frog-Mouth, by the way, is one of Devil Chad's closest friends."

As though summoned by the voice, one of the very few tall Frenchmen Ramsay had ever seen appeared at the door. His mouth, the boy noticed, was oddly like that of a frog. As soon as he recognized his visitor, he emitted an enraged bellow and charged.

Hans grinned, stepped aside, and swung. But Frog-Mouth Fontan was an expert fighter, too. He dodged, pivoted and dealt two swift blows that set Hans' head to rocking. Then the Dutchman found the range, and sent his pile-driver fist into Frog-Mouth's jaw. He hit again, and a third time. Frog-Mouth Fontan staggered, weaved backwards, and with a silly grin on his face sat down against the cabin. He continued to grin foolishly, staring into the bright sun. A small, dark woman without any teeth appeared at the door. She looked at her husband, then spat at him.

"_Cochon!_" she said. "Pig!" She looked at Ramsay and Hans. "What do you want?"

"One of your excellent pound nets, Madame Fontan," Hans murmured politely.

"Do you have the money to pay for it?"

"We have it."

"Load the net."

Ramsay helped Hans lift the folded net, four pieces of three-and-a-quarter-inch webbing, two pieces of six-and-a-quarter-inch, and seven pieces of eight-and-a-half-inch, onto the cart. The latter sagged beneath almost seven hundred pounds of net, and the little horse looked questioningly around. But he stepped out obediently when Hans slapped the reins over his back, and Captain Klaus squawked over them as they returned to Pieter's farm.

The next morning Ramsay stared in astonishment at a unique craft coming down the lake. Five men, one of whom was Tom Nedley, manned the outlandish rigging, and it was propelled by two sets of oars. Ramsay strolled down to meet it, and noticed some spiles--poles--about thirty-five feet long, that were piled on the beach. Evidently Hans had cut them, or had them brought down, after he and Ramsay returned home.

The craft, and as it drew near, Ramsay saw that it was two sixteen-foot pound boats, bound together by stout planks front and rear, nosed into the pier. The crew disembarked, and Tom Nedley introduced Ramsay to his brother, his cousin and their two strapping sons. Ramsay turned a curious gaze on the boats.

They were lashed solidly together by planks that kept them about fifteen feet apart. On top of the planks was raised a sort of scaffolding, connected by a heavy beam whose nether surface was about twenty feet from the water. Suspended from the beam was a four-pulley block with a rope through each pulley, and the ropes supported an iron drop hammer.

There was another pulley whose use Ramsay could not even guess.

Shouting and scrambling as though this were some sort of picnic especially arranged just for them, Tom Nedley's boisterous crew threw the spiles in the water and floated them out to the boats. They tied them to the stern, then set up a concerted shouting. "Hans! Hey, Hans!

Pieter!"

Grinning, Hans and Pieter, who had lingered over their breakfast after Ramsay was finished, appeared from the house. Tom Nedley's brother said plaintively, "Twenty minutes of six! Half the day gone already! Don't you fellows ever do anything except sleep?"

"Yaah!" Hans scoffed. "Who is so filled with ambition?" He looked at the oarsman who had spoken and leaped lightly into the boat. "Now we will see who is the best man."

Ramsay jumped on board just in time to keep from being left behind, and Hans bent his mighty back to the oars. In the second boat the other oarsman tried to match Hans' pace, and the unwieldy craft spurted away like a frightened deer. Trailing behind, the spiles left a path of bubbly ripples.

Out of the bay they went and into the open lake. Then they turned south, obviously Hans had some destination in mind. At any rate, he seemed to know exactly where he was going. They stopped rowing on a reef about a mile from shore, and one of the men retrieved a spile.

Tom Nedley spoke to Ramsay. "Feel strong?"

"Sure thing."

"Good. We'll need some strong men around here. Wait until they're set, an' then I'll show you what to do."

Hans and another man up-ended the spile and probed toward the lake bottom with it. They hung it on the other pulley and, when it was in place, the end was about three feet below the drop-hammer. Hans fastened it to the pulley, steadied it with his hands and sang out, "Let her go!"

Tom Nedley handed a long rope to Ramsay, bade him hold it tight, and two men in the other boat took the other two ropes. Jerking the rope in his hands, Tom Nedley tripped the latch holding the drop-hammer, and instantly Ramsay felt the weight.

He hung on very tightly and was reassured by Tom Nedley's quiet, "You'll soon get the hang of it. When I give the word, let the hammer fall just hard enough to hit the spile. Stop it, of course, before it hits the boys steadyin' for us."

Ramsay waited, his eyes on Tom Nedley. The big man said, "Now!"

The hammer dropped squarely but not completely, because Ramsay tried to stop it too soon. Again Tom Nedley reassured him.

"Just let her fall," he urged, as he helped raise the hammer back into position. "There's plenty of time to stop her, but don't be careless.

That hammer weighs a hundred and seventy five pounds, an' I doubt if even Hans' head would take that much fallin' on it."

This time Ramsay got the rhythm. The hammer dropped swiftly, squarely and with full force. It seated the spile in the lake bottom, so that there was no longer any necessity for holding it. Hans and the other stepped back. Again and again Ramsay helped drop the hammer, until the pole was driven about eight feet into the lake bottom and perhaps four feet remained above the surface. It had been about thirty-six feet to start with, therefore the water at this place was twenty-four feet deep.

It should be right for whitefish.

"Let me take that rope a while," someone said.

Gladly Ramsay relinquished his rope to Pieter, and rested his aching shoulders while he watched interestedly. The piles were being driven in a geometrical pattern, a sort of square, and Ramsay understood that the first nine were to hold the pot, the actual trap. Measuring carefully, the boats moved away and more spiles were driven. These were for the hearts of the net. Finally, running straight toward shore, spiles were driven in a pattern that resembled the forks of a 'Y.' To these would be attached the tunnel, the webbing that guided fish through the hearts of the pound net and into the pot.

Ramsay straightened, easing his aching shoulders. It was hard work, very hard, to lift the hammer and let it fall for hours on end. But now the spiles for one pound net were driven. The boy turned to Hans. "Gee whiz!

How about moving all this?"

"You don't move a pound net except, of course, to take up the webbing when the lake freezes. Otherwise, we'll leave this right where it is. It is possible to fish a pound net in the same location for fifty years or more."