"What's next?"

"Set the net. I think there is still time."

They rowed back to the pier, where Marta, who had taken over the treasurer's post, paid Tom Nedley and his crew. The big man grinned his thanks.

"You need us again, you know where to find us."

"We'll probably take you up on that," Hans said.

The ropes binding the two boats were loosened and the scaffold taken down. Leaving the boat Hans had bought, Tom Nedley and his helpers piled into the other one and started rowing up the lake. Hans, Pieter and Ramsay went to the pound net.

The pot, the trap, was loaded first. Then came the flaring, heart-shaped 'hearts,' and finally the leads, or tunnel. Setting himself to the oars, Hans rowed back to where they had driven the piles. He tied the lead, the beginning of the tunnel, to the spile. A five-pound stone fastened to the bottom rope carried it down into the lake. Giving the oars to Ramsay and cautioning him to travel slowly, Hans fastened the lead to each spile and sank it with stones. The flaring hearts were set in the same way.

Coming to the pot, Hans first fastened a four-foot chain with an attached pulley to the pile. Then he tied a rope, double the depth of the water and with some allowance for shrinkage, to the bottom of the pot. He did this on each spile, and they put the whole pot into the water. Ramsay began to understand.

In effect, they had set a gigantic fly-trap. Any fish that came along would be guided by the tunnel into the hearts, and then into the pot.

Should any escape, the flaring sides of the hearts would keep them trapped and, nine times out of ten, send them back into the pot instead of out through the tunnel.

Ramsay labored under the weight of a two-hundred-pound sturgeon which had been dragged in by the seine. Hans and Pieter hadn't wanted to bother with sturgeon because there was no market for them, anyhow, but Ramsay had permitted them to throw none back into the lake. Cradling his slippery prize across his chest, as though it was a log, he carried it to the pond and threw it in. For a moment the sturgeon swam dazedly on the surface, then flipped his tail and submerged. Ramsay gazed into the pond. It was alive with sturgeon weighing from seventy-five to almost three hundred pounds. There were so many that, to supplement the food in the pond, they were feeding them ground corn.

Ramsay stripped off his wet clothes and dived cleanly into the pond.

Water surged about him, washing off all the sweat and grime which he had accumulated during the day. He probed along the pond's bottom, and felt the smooth sides of a sturgeon beneath him. It was only a little one.

He swam on until he had to surface for air, and dived again. Across the pond's murky depths he prowled, his white body gleaming like some great worm in the water. Finally he found what he was looking for.

It was a big sturgeon, and it was feeding quietly. Moving as slowly as possible, Ramsay rubbed a hand across its back. Suddenly he wrapped both arms about the fish and took a firm grasp with his bare legs.

For a moment, while the dull sturgeon tried to determine what was happening, there was no movement. Then the big fish awakened to danger and shot to the surface. With all the speed of an outboard motor he sliced along it, and a moment later he dived again. Grinning, exhilarated, Ramsay swam back to shore and dressed.

Tradin' Jack Hammersly's rig was in the yard, and Ramsay heard the man say, "Marta, what you been feedin' your hens?"

"The best!" Marta said indignantly. "The very best!"

"The best of what?"

"Why grain, and scraps, and ..."

"And sturgeon roe?"

"Why--yes."

"What I thought," Tradin' Jack sighed. "Ye'll have to stop it. Ever'

customer as got some of your eggs told me they taste like caviar!"

A moment later there was a rapid-fire sputter of French expletives. His face red, seeming about to explode, Baptiste LeClaire raced around the corner of the house.

"Get your guns!" he screamed when he saw Ramsay. "Get your knives and clubs too! Get everything! We have to kill everybody!"

CHAPTER NINE

_PIRATES_

Baptiste was dancing up and down, flinging his arms like the blades of a windmill and screaming in French. Ramsay wrinkled his brow. He had picked up some French, but not enough to translate the torrent of words that rolled out of the agitated man's mouth. And never before in his life had he seen anyone so mad. Baptiste was invoking every evil he could think of, a most generous portion, upon someone's hapless head.

Ramsay made a move to stop him.

"Wait. I can't follow you...."

A few English words, among which Ramsay recognized pig, dog and son of a rotten fish, mingled with Baptiste's violent Gallic tirade. He continued to wave his arms and yell. Ramsay waited helplessly, unable to understand or to do anything. Attracted by the clamor, Hans, Pieter, Marta and Tradin' Jack appeared.

Very quietly Hans advanced to Baptiste's side. "What is it, my friend?"

Almost tearfully, grateful because, at last, he had someone able to understand, Baptiste turned his machine-gun rattle of French on Hans.

Ramsay watched the Dutch fisherman's face tighten, and then it was set in white-hot anger. He waited for Baptiste to finish, and asked in English, "Do you know who did it?"

"No." Having worn himself out, Baptiste lapsed naturally into English, too. He turned his hot, angry face on the others.

Hans spoke again. "Go to Madame Fontan in Three Points," he said to Baptiste. "Tell her that I, Hans Van Doorst, said that you are to have the nets you need. If she has not enough woven, get them elsewhere.

Madame LeDou makes excellent seines and gill nets. Go to the store for the rope you need, and tell them I will pay for everything. We ourselves will come to help you drive new spiles and make new sets."

"It is good of you," Baptiste's face was still flaming with rage, "but we cannot let the matter rest there."

"Nor can we," Hans' tone was calm and reasoning, "go about shooting people when we do not know who to shoot."

"Pah! I know! It is Devil Chad!"

"Have you proof of that?"

"The proof is self-evident. Who but Devil Chad would dare do such a thing?"

"Did you see him?"

"Does one see the wise fox when he comes in the night to steal a fat goose? No, I did not see him."

"Listen, my friend. Listen carefully. If this sort of piracy has been started and we do not end it, we are lost. But ours will be a small triumph if all of us get ourselves hanged. We must proceed with caution."

"I do not like caution."

"Nevertheless, we must now employ it. We cannot rush off with guns and shoot because we suspect. Get your nets and whatever else you need, and start anew. When you can bring me proof of the pirates, I myself will be the first to shoot."

"It is the stumbling way."

"It is the only way. If there is to be war, then let there be war. But we cannot strike out blindly. To do that will be to turn every man's hand against us. We cannot fight at all if we do not know our enemies."