He dressed slowly, happily, and now all his cares were behind him. This was the place for him, and no longer did he have the slightest doubt that he was going to like everything about it. Fresh and vigorous, the day's toil washed away, he walked slowly down to Lake Michigan and stared across it. Supper in half an hour, Pieter had said when he had advised Ramsay to stop work and have a swim, and no more than half that time had elapsed. The rest could profitably be spent in just looking at this endlessly fascinating water.
Ramsay stared across the lake. More than ever it seemed a live creature and one of many moods. Ramsay had seen it roaring-mad, and now he saw it gentle as a lamb. There was scarcely a ripple anywhere. Absorbed in the lake, Ramsay was aware of nothing else until a horse snorted very close to him. When he whirled, he knew that he had seen the same horse and rider before.
It was the body-watcher, Joe Mannis, and he was riding the black-and-white horse which he had ridden when he had warned Ramsay away from the drowned Captain Schultz and the deck hand. The huge cowboy hat tilted precariously on his head and the blue jeans, apparently unwashed in a good many months, clung tightly to his legs. Thick black hair escaped from beneath the hat, and he looked Ramsay up and down. "What are you doin' here?"
"What's it to you?"
"Well, nothin' I expect. Nothin' at all. But just don't bother me again when I'm workin' at my trade."
"I won't," Ramsay promised, "unless I have a couple of pistols, too."
"Just don't bother me when I'm workin' at my trade," the other repeated, "an' we'll get along fine."
"You think so?" Ramsay snapped.
Missing the challenge implied in Ramsay's words, Joe Mannis trotted his horse up the sand beach toward Three Points. Ramsay looked without interest at his retreating back. Joe Mannis was an unsavory man, he decided, but unlike Devil Chad, he was a stupid man. Only when backed by his pistols would Joe be much of a threat.
Ramsay pushed his drying hair back with his hands and went around to the rear of the Van Hooven house. That was also a custom, it seemed. Formal visitors, if there were any, might enter by the front door; but everyone else went around to the rear. Obviously the visitor who had arrived while Ramsay bathed and stood on the shore, was not formal.