Ramsay watched while it swam, and some semblance of cool control returned to his fevered imagination. This was no grotesque monster from another world. Telling himself again that it was nothing more or less than an unusual fish, he watched it sink back into the churning depths from which it had arisen. He put a shaking hand on the Holter's rail.
It was a fish and nothing else. None but superstitious people believed in superstition. Then the deck hand's terrified shriek rose above the keening wind.
"It's him! We seen it! The White Sturgeon! Gar-hhh!"
Mouth agape, the deck hand kept his eyes on that place where the White Sturgeon had disappeared. A great wave washed across the deck, and when it rolled away the deck hand was no longer visible. Ramsay shook his head to clear it and looked again at the place where the deck hand had been standing. Lake Michigan could swallow a man even easier than a pond swallowed a pebble, for there had not been even a ripple to mark the place where the deck hand had disappeared. There was not the slightest possibility of rescuing him. The deck hand had seen the White Sturgeon!
A battering ram of a wave crashed into the Holter's starboard side, and Ramsay felt a cold chill travel up and down his spine. Fear laid its icy fingers there, but he shook them off. The fact that the water had been calm when the White Sturgeon made its appearance and was angry now had nothing whatever to do with the fish. Rather, the calm water could be attributed to some quirk, some phenomenon inherent in the storm itself. Probably the White Sturgeon appeared because, for the moment, the lake had been calm. Knowing that, the big fish had nosed its way to the surface. Now that the lake was again storm-deviled, the White Sturgeon was gone.
Bracing himself against the wind, Ramsay made his way across the deck to the wheelhouse. He shivered, for the first time aware of the fact that his clothing was rain-drenched and that he was very cold. It was a penetrating, creeping cold that reached the inmost marrow of his bones. When another wave smashed the Holter, Ramsay caught hold of the little horse's cage to steady himself. Within the enclosure, nervous but still not terrified, the black horse looked hopefully at him.
Ramsay reached the wheelhouse, and came face to face with Captain Schultz. The little captain's slicker had blown open, so that now it was of no use whatever in warding off the rain, but he had not seen fit to close it again. It would do him no good if he did; his clothing was already soaked.
Ramsay shouted to make himself heard above the roar of the wind. "What happened?"
"The enchin, she kaput. Like that, she kaput."
Ramsay revised his opinions of the little Captain. At the pier, Captain Schultz had been only a fat, fussy little man. Facing this dire predicament, he was not terrified and had not given way to panic. He had risen to the emergency. Maybe, Ramsay thought, anyone who sailed Lake Michigan had to be able to rise to any emergency if he would continue to sail. He shouted again, "Will the ship sink?"