Ramsay Cartou leaned on the rail of the ponderous side-wheeler, the H. H. Holter, and watched without interest while a horse-drawn truck brought another load of cattle hides on board. The sweating stevedores who were loading the Holter and the belaboring mate who supervised them began stowing the hides into the hold. The Holter's winch, either ruined by an inexpert operator or about to fall apart anyhow, was broken. All the work had to be done by hand.
Ramsay turned to breathe the clean air that swept in from Lake Michigan. It was impossible, anywhere on the Holter, to get away from the smell of the hides, but at least he did not have to look at them.
Not since he had left the brawling young city of Chicago two days before, to make his way north to the equally lusty young city of Milwaukee, had the sun shone. In those two days, while he waited for repairs to the engine hauling the train in which he was riding, he had seen nothing of the lake. Now, from the mouth of the river where the Holter was anchored, he had a clear view, and it was exciting.
The grays of the sky and the grays of the lake were indefinable, with no clear separation. Ramsay shivered slightly.
The lake was a cat, he thought, a great sinewy cat, and the whitecaps rolling into the harbor were its sheathed and unsheathed claws. It was an awesome thing, but at the same time a wonderful one. A trembling excitement rose within him. The lake was at once a challenge and a promise—a threat and a mighty lure. He stared, fascinated, and tried to trace the rolling course of the waves as they surged toward the bank. It was impossible to follow just one for, as soon as it swelled, it retreated, to lose itself in the immense lake and renew itself in endless forward surges. Like recklessly charging soldiers, the waves cast themselves up on the bank and, exhausted, fell back.
So absorbed was he in the spectacle and so fascinated by the lake, that for a moment he was unaware of the man beside him or of the words he spoke. Then a rough hand grasped his shoulder and, reacting instantly, Ramsay whirled around.
"Why ain't you at work with the rest, boy?"
"Take your hand off me!"
The man who stood beside him was oddly like a rock, a great granite boulder. Two inches taller than Ramsay's six feet, he had a barrel chest and long, powerful arms. A leather jacket, with the sleeves cut off, hung loosely on his upper body, and beneath it he wore a homespun shirt. His black trousers had been fashioned by an exacting tailor but sadly misused. They were torn and patched with anything that might have been at hand. Black hair straggled from beneath his crushed black hat and the hair needed cutting. His eyes, colorless, were oddly inanimate, like two glass balls with no special warmth or feeling. A black beard sprouted from his cheeks and half-hid his face, but the beard did not hide thick, coarse lips. He repeated, "Them hides got to be loaded! Get to work!"
"Load them yourself!"