Suddenly Ramsay leaped to his feet and stifled a cry. Far out in the lake's surging gray masses he thought that he had seen something pure white. But he could not be sure. A moment later he saw it again. A sail!

Then he was able clearly to identify a little peanut shell of a boat.

She was the _Spray_, and she was in serious trouble.

CHAPTER FIVE

_RESCUE_

A fresh gust of wind sent the waves leaping higher, and for a moment only the furious lake could be seen. Ramsay rose, and Pieter rose beside him; and both went to the barn door. They stood alert, still not speaking and not even certain of what they had seen. Then they saw it again.

Beyond any possible doubt it was the _Spray_, and she was working valiantly to get into shore. Ramsay swallowed a lump in his throat. He had first seen the _Spray_ as a dancing bit of gaiety on a lake as stormy as this one, and then she had seemed so sure of herself and so capable. Now she was like a shot-wounded duck which, no longer able to rise in graceful flight, must lie on the water and flutter desperate wings. For another tense moment Ramsay and Pieter stood side by side.

By inches the _Spray_ was fighting her way toward shore, but a glance was sufficient to reveal the tremendous odds against her ever making safety. Still, even in this terrible dilemma, there was a spirit about her which the _Holter_ never had and never could have. The two men on the _Spray_--and did not the crazy Dutch fisherman usually carry a crew of four?--seemed to be working calmly and easily. There was, from this distance, no trace of the near-panic that had reigned when the _Holter_ went down.

Ramsay knew a moment's intense gratification. This was part of the dream, part of the picture he had engraved in his heart when he first saw the _Spray_ and her skipper. When they challenged the lake, they accepted it in all its aspects. Now they were behaving as all fishermen should behave. Before they could even begin to follow their trade they must make an unbreakable pact with their fortune on the water, be it good or bad.

Then the trance was broken. Out on the lake, within sight of Pieter and Ramsay, men were about to die. They must not die if there was any way to help them. As though their eyes were guided by one common impulse, both men looked toward Pieter's small boat.

It was a clumsy craft, strongly-built of heavy timbers which Pieter himself had hand-sawed in his spare time. Usually, when Pieter wasn't using the boat, it was pulled high enough on the beach so storm-driven battering rams of waves could not touch it, and so it was now. Side by side, with no need to speak, Pieter and Ramsay left the barn and raced toward the boat.

Wind-driven rain soaked their clothing before they had gone ten feet, but they paid no attention to it. Kneeling, one on either side of the fourteen-foot boat, they strove to push it back into the lake. Pieter shouted to make himself heard above the roar of the wind and the smashing waves. "Wait!"

Ramsay stopped pushing while Pieter took the long oars out of their locks and laid them lengthwise in the boat. The boy nodded approvingly.

As things were, it seemed all but impossible to launch the boat. If they launched it and lost an oar in the high seas, they were doomed to disaster, anyhow.

"Now!" Pieter shouted.

The boat scraped a deep furrow in the wet sand as, with a concerted effort, they pushed it backwards. Not looking at the savage combers, Ramsay gave all his attention to the boat. They would have to work with all possible speed to get it into the lake and the oars in place, because the waves were rising to enormous heights now. He felt the boat's square stern touch water.

Then an irresistible giant, a force that would bear no interference, took hold and shoved the little craft almost as far up on the beach as it had been when they tried to launch it. Leaving the boat half-filled with water, the smashing wave washed away from the wet sand.

Ramsay stood erect to catch his breath. They had given all their strength to backing the boat into the lake, and as they were about to succeed it had been plucked from their hands as easily as a strong man might snatch a flower from the hands of a baby. He glanced out across the water to assure himself that the _Spray_ was still floating, then looked desperately at Pieter.

"Nose first!" Pieter said. "Turn it around!"

He shouted to make himself heard, but there was about him an almost maddening calmness as he worked. Ramsay restrained his impatience. They must not lose a second's time; but if they were going to do this at all, it must be done exactly right. Both on one side of the boat, they raised it to let the water spill out.

In spite of his drenched clothing and the cold air that blew in from the lake, Ramsay was sweating. Pieter's boat had been built by a farmer, not a fisherman. It was all right on a calm day when Pieter wanted to go fishing, but certainly it had never been built to weather storms. So heavy was the craft that the combined strength of two men was needed to tip the water from it.

They let the boat drop heavily back on its side, and the oars fell out.

Still calmly, refusing to become excited, Pieter picked them up and placed them in the oar locks. Again Ramsay understood. Both men knew this for a furious storm but both had underestimated its fury. At the best, should they be able to get the boat into the lake, they would have a split second to float her and the oars had to be ready. It was better to take a chance on losing an oar than to have the boat driven back onto the beach.

Kneeling, Ramsay felt his muscles stand out like stretched cords as he gave every ounce of strength to turning the boat around. He was sweating again--and short of breath. Only the pressing urgency and the great need for immediate action gave him the strength to continue.

Then the craft seemed to move a little easier, and Ramsay glanced around to see Marta working beside them. Noting them from the house, and understanding their mission, she had thrown a shawl about her shoulders and raced out to help. With almost maddening slowness the boat turned until its curved nose faced the lake.

Ramsay on one side and Pieter on the other slid it down the wet sand toward the water. The boy bit his lip fiercely to help keep control of himself. Nothing must go amiss here, and a wrong or panic-stricken move could mean disaster. Because this launching demanded machine-like precision, Ramsay fought to control the fire in his brain. Carefully he thought out each exact step.

Get the boat into the lake until it floated. Then leap in beside Pieter, grab an oar and time his strokes to Pieter's. Fight their way out to the stricken _Spray_ and rescue those aboard her.

It seemed a simple matter, but never before in his whole life had Ramsay faced anything more complex. It couldn't be done, his mind said, while at the same time something else told him that it could and must be done.

He glanced around and curiously, as though the picture were registering somewhere other than in his own eyes, he saw Marta Van Hooven.

She was standing at the edge of the lake, her dress and shawl sodden-wet and her rain-soaked blond hair clinging like a seal's fur to her head and shoulders. One hand covered her mouth, as though to stifle a cry that was half-born there, and in her eyes were a great pleading and a great prayer as she watched her husband. But the cry did not find life.

She uttered no sound. While she did not want Pieter to go, at the same time she knew that he must. Only if help came did anyone left alive on the _Spray_ have even a faint chance of staying alive.

Then they were in the lake, and a mighty wave burst like a water-filled bomb about them. It staggered Ramsay and sent him reeling, but it did not unnerve him. Because he had practised in his own imagination what he must do from here on in, he could do it.

He felt cold water creeping about his shoes and then up around his knees. The boat which they had been dragging steadied itself as they reached water in which it could float. Through the blinding spray that lashed at them Ramsay looked across at Pieter. He saw him only indistinctly, but it was as though they read each other's thoughts. At exactly the same moment they flung themselves into opposite sides of the rower's seat and each grabbed an oar. The boy bent his back to the man-killing job of rowing.

The boat was sluggish, and again half-filled with water. But it floated, and as soon as they were free of the mighty waves that smashed against the beach it floated a little more easily. Ramsay looked back across the steel-gray turmoil to see the Van Hooven farm, and Marta still on the shore. Then he returned all his attention to the task at hand.

The lake was an insane thing, bent on destruction. They went into the trough of a wave and rose on the next one. Ramsay risked a fleeting backward glance to see the _Spray_, much nearer the shore and still afloat.

Suddenly they were in an almost-calm stretch of water. Ramsay felt cold fear run up and down his spine. He had met this on the sinking _Holter_, and now here it was again. Almost fearfully he glanced sidewise at Pieter, but he could not speak because the screaming wind would have drowned his words as soon as he uttered them. His eyes grew big.

Just behind, and again on the right side, an apparition drifted out of the depths. It was a ghost figure, a thing born of nightmares. Ramsay gasped. The White Sturgeon nosed to the surface, drifted lazily for a moment and disappeared back into the watery depths out of which it had come.

Ramsay risked a sidewise glance at Pieter, whose face remained undisturbed, and he swallowed the lump in his own throat. Sailors might fear the White Sturgeon, but if Pieter did, he was not showing his fear.

The boy told himself again that the sturgeon was a fish, nothing more or less than a great fish which, through some freak of nature, was colored white. But it did seem to appear only when death and destruction stalked the lake. He forced such thoughts from his mind.

They were again in storm-lashed water, striving to keep their boat straight and headed toward the _Spray_. Vast waves bore down upon them, plunging the little craft into their cold troughs and then shooting it up as though it were a plaything. From the crest of the waves Ramsay could still see the _Spray_. He worried. Now there seemed to be only one man aboard her.

There was a sharp, sickening crack and the sound of splintering wood, that rose above the roar of the wind and the surge of the waves. The boat slewed sideways, and for the first time Pieter Van Hooven's face betrayed emotion. He brought in the stump of oar remaining in his hand and, at the risk of upsetting the little boat, leaned across the seat to snatch Ramsay's oar from its lock. With that in his hand, he made a precarious way to the stern. He thrust the oar over the rear seat, trying to use it as a rudder, and the boy strove to overcome the fear he felt.

The White Sturgeon, the sailors' superstition said, always brought disaster. If you see it, the little deck hand had told Ramsay, you can start praying right afterwards. For one terror-filled moment their predictions seemed correct. Twice Ramsay had seen the White Sturgeon; each time he had been in immediate danger of death. Then superstition subsided and reason came back to his aid.

Crouching in the back seat, with only one oar, Pieter Van Hooven was doing his best to fight the angry lake. Though he was a farmer, obviously he knew something of seamanship.

For a brief moment, just long enough to keep from capsizing, he kept the little boat headed into the onrushing waves. When he turned it, he did so skilfully. Working the oar only with the strength in his hard-muscled arms, he headed back towards shore. A mighty wave smashed the stern, throwing cold water over them and across the tiny craft. Ramsay moved from side to side, doing all he could to help Pieter by shifting his weight to where it was needed most. The boat was three-quarters filled with water. Never made for a heavy sea, now it was an almost dead thing.

But so strong were the waves and so powerful the wind, that they were driven at almost motor speed back into the beach. Ramsay had one glimpse of Marta.

Pieter lost the little control he had. Turning sidewise, the boat lifted like a matchstick on the crest of a giant wave and spun dizzily down into the trough. It was lifted again, and just before it turned over Ramsay flung himself clear. As he did, he saw Pieter go over with him.

He dived as deeply as he could, knowing that the boat would come crashing down and knowing also that it would kill him if it struck him on the head. Far into the lake he went, swimming under water and groping his way. He surfaced to see the craft to one side and a bobbing object, which he thought was the head of Pieter Van Hooven. A second later a tremendous wave deposited him on the sandy beach.

He lay gasping, all the breath knocked out of him, and he wished desperately to get out of the path of the waves that were breaking over him. But it seemed impossible to move. His mind urged him to go, but he lacked the physical strength to obey. Then he felt a pair of hands in his armpits, and his body was dragged over the scraping sand. Ramsay looked up to see the frightened face of Marta Van Hooven.

"Can you move?" she pleaded.

"Gi--give me a minute!"

For what seemed an interminable time, but could not have been more than twenty seconds, Ramsay lay still. He turned over so that he lay face down, and lifted himself with his arms. His legs and feet were made of jelly. Vaguely he was aware of Marta and Pieter Van Hooven, one on each side, lifting him to his feet. A second later his strength returned.