"No."
"Well, we brought you out from the sand. We'll take you back to the sand."
Hans' shoulders were shaking with silent mirth as he bent his back to the pound boat's oars. He steered in to the pier they had built, and expertly nosed the boat in to its landing. A mist-draped wraith, Marta, awaited them. "What happened?" she queried anxiously.
"Nothing," Pieter assured her.
"A great deal," Hans corrected. "They caught the White Sturgeon, for no other fish in the lake could have wrecked a net so completely. I told you we have a friend."
He took a pouch from his pocket, counted five silver dollars from it, and dropped them into Jake Hillis' hand. Captain Klaus flew down from the house top to alight on Hans' shoulder. "Quark!" he squawked.
As though he understood perfectly, Hans said, "That is right, my little one." And to Jake Hillis he said, "If you see them, tell them not to come again."
Deliberately turning his back on the constable, Hans stared out over the lake. Then Jake Hillis was gone, and somehow it was as though he had never even been with them. Ramsay waited expectantly. Hans turned away from his intent study of the lake, and he was frowning as though there was some complicated problem which he must solve. Yet when he spoke, his voice betrayed nothing abnormal and there was no sign that he might have been under the least strain. "Perhaps it would be well not to fish again today. That is a shame, for the season draws to a close and we cannot fish much longer, anyway. Still, we have done all that it is necessary to do, and next year we will be well-situated. We will have gear and tackle. I go to work on the boat."
Ramsay asked, "Do you think they will come again?"
Hans answered deliberately, "I do not think so, but no man may say for certain. They are not without determined and intelligent leadership. If he does come again, he will come hard and directly at us. He will not bother with the nets. There is no need to keep a patrol on the lake tonight."