Trembling, he sheathed his spear and paddled back to his encampment. He had seen the White Sturgeon, the Ghost Fish, and that night a mighty storm knocked down a big pine near the Indian's camp. Two people were killed when it fell.

Knowing nothing of this, lying contentedly in thirty feet of water where he was aware of the storm only because his fine and deep senses made him aware of everything that occurred above, the White Sturgeon grubbed for food in the lake's bottom.

The next time his tribe left the lake to rush up the river, the White Sturgeon journeyed with them. He went because he must, because it was a call even stronger than hunger and he could not resist it. The strongest of sturgeon, he stayed in the fore-front of the spawning horde and still remained away from the banks. The few Indians who saw him were so astonished that they forgot to strike with their spears, and he never even came close to the prowling bears and other beasts that waxed so fat when the migrating sturgeon came back to spawn.

Guided by the most precise of instincts, the White Sturgeon went exactly to that spawning bed in the sedges where he was born, and fertilized the eggs that a female left there. Wan and spent, caring for nothing, once his main purpose in life had been realized, he turned and swam back into the lake. That was now his home.

Again and again the White Sturgeon went up the river with his kind. Only once, in all the trips he made, was he in real danger, and that time an Indian's spear scratched his side. The Indian, fishing with two companions, promptly fell into the river and drowned.

Thus the legend of the White Sturgeon grew. Born in a red man's fertile mind, it was handed from red man to white and distorted in the transfer.

Now none could trace its origin and none knew exactly how it had begun.

Lake men knew only of the White Sturgeon, and he had learned much of men. But he lived in the present, not the past.

Years had elapsed since Lake Michigan was shadowed only by canoes. Now there were the Mackinaw boats, the pound boats, the churning side-wheelers and the rowboats. Because it was his affair to know everything that went on in the lake, the White Sturgeon knew them all.

He knew also that it was good to rest in the lake's gentler places. Not in years had he rushed up the river with his spawning comrades. The fires of his youth had long since been quenched, and besides, he was now far too big to travel up any river. Perhaps the same quirk of nature that had granted him his pigment had given him his size. Other sturgeon were thought to be huge when they attained a weight of two hundred and fifty pounds. The White Sturgeon weighed almost a thousand pounds.

He was still a gentle creature, though the sudden angers of age were apt to seize him, and on the morning that Ramsay, Pieter and Hans were called to Three Points, the Sturgeon was feeding quietly in the tunnel of the first pound net they had set. He stopped feeding when he sensed an approaching boat.

It was a Mackinaw boat, used for setting gill nets, and it was shrouded in mist that sat like a fleecy blanket upon the lake. The White Sturgeon lay very still. He was not afraid but he had no wish to be disturbed, and if he remained very quiet, perhaps he would not be bothered. He was aware of something coming into the lake and of the boat's withdrawal into the shrouding mist.

The White Sturgeon decided to move, but when he tried to do so he found his way blocked. A gill net was stretched across the entrance to the pound net, effectively preventing anything outside from getting in or anything inside from getting out, and the White Sturgeon was trapped by it.

Gently he nosed against the gill net, seeking a way through. When none offered, he swam a little ways and tried again. A third, a fourth and a fifth time he sought escape. There was none, and the White Sturgeon's anger flared.

He flung himself against the gill net, felt it cling to his mighty body, and twisted about. A hundred yards to one side, in a weak place, the net ripped completely in half. The White Sturgeon threshed and twisted until he had reduced the entrapping folds to a mass of linen thread.

Segments of the ruined net clung to him as he swam away.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

_FISHERMAN'S LUCK_

The horse that had galloped from Three Points to Pieter's farm in order to bring news of Marta's misfortune was too spent to gallop back. Nor could he carry more than one man, even if he had not been spent. Ramsay, Pieter and Hans left horse and rider at the farm, while they started up the beach. For a short distance they stayed together. Then Ramsay, the youngest and best winded of the three, drew ahead.

A cold dread and a great fear gnawed at him as he alternately walked and trotted. Marta had become like a beloved sister to him, and the messenger carried no news except that she was injured. How or why, he had not said. Ramsay glanced back over his shoulder to see if his companions were keeping up with him, and discovered that they were lost in the mist. In any event the day would have been unpleasant. There was just the right weather combination to make it so--a hint of rain combined with warm air to drape the fog over everything. And there was no indication that anything would change. Somehow it seemed just the day to get bad news.

Ramsay lengthened out to trot again, and then increased his trot to a run. He was breathing hard, but far from exhausted, and with a little surprise he realized that he would not have been able to travel so far without halting, or so fast, when he first came to Wisconsin. A fisherman's life had toughened him immeasurably. Once more he slowed down and looked around to see if Pieter and Hans were in sight. They were not. He walked until he was rested, then trotted into Three Points.

As though there was something in the village that drove it back, the mist had not invaded there. It was on all sides so thick that the lake could not be seen and the trees were ghost shapes, half-concealed and half-disclosed. Most of Three Points was at work, but the few passers-by on the street glanced curiously at Ramsay as he swung past them. He saw the little black horse, tied to a hitching post in front of the general store.

He bounded up the wooden steps, pushed the door open and entered. Marta, the lower part of her left leg encased in a clean white bandage, was sitting on a chair. She turned astonished eyes on him. "Ramsay!"

"Are you all right?" he gasped.

"Why ... Of course, I'm all right!"

"You're not hurt?"

"A scratch!" She sniffed disdainfully. "Just a scratch! I stumbled when I stepped out of the cart. Ach! Such a clumsy one I was!"

The storekeeper's wife, obviously the one who had bandaged Marta's leg, smiled her reassurance. "It is not bad," she said.

"Oh!" Ramsay felt a moment's clumsiness because he could think of nothing to say, and again he exclaimed, "Oh!"

Panting hard, deep concern written on their faces, Hans and Pieter came into the store. Marta's surprised eyes opened still wider. "I thought you boys were fishing!"

"We--we had to come in for some more twine," Ramsay said somewhat lamely.

"Three of you?"

"Yaah," Hans, never slow to understand, smiled with affected laziness.

"You know us men, Marta. There wouldn't one of us stay there and work while another was loafing in Three Points."

"That's right." Slow Pieter finally understood that there was more here than met the eye. "How'd you hurt yourself, Marta?"

The wondering gaze of the storekeeper and his wife were upon them now.

Still puzzled, Marta glanced covertly at the three men. Ramsay looked at the storekeeper's wife.

"You should have sent somebody to tell us she was hurt."

"But," the storekeeper's wife was completely bewildered, "she is not hurt."

"What's the matter?" Marta seemed worried now.

"Nothing," Hans answered blandly. "Nothing at all. We just decided to have a holiday in Three Points."

"Go long!" Marta scoffed. "Men! They're bigger babies than babies are!"

"Be sure to bring us some twine," Hans said.

"Oh, sure. That I will do."

"Good."

All three men were smiling easily. But as soon as they left the store and were out of Marta's sight, the smiles faded and their faces became grim and intent.

"Who was the man who told us she was hurt?" Ramsay asked.

Pieter shook his head, and Hans said, "I never saw him before and I don't expect to see him again. Probably he was riding into Milwaukee anyway, and somebody gave him a dollar to report an accident."

Ramsay nodded. Hans, as usual, was logical and there could be only one answer. Somebody was indeed out to capture the fishing on Lake Michigan.

They had started by destroying Baptiste's nets and now they were moving against Ramsay and his friends. But they knew well the prowess of the three and had no wish to strike while they were present. Marta's reported accident had been only a ruse to draw them away.

Ramsay started toward the sand beach, but Hans laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. "Wait!"