"Yeah, an' quite a fighter. On'y reason he didn't clean your clock was on account Captain Schultz told him you was a payin' passenger. Devil Chad, he gets half the fare every passenger on the Holter pays, he does."
Ramsay knew a rising irritation. "What makes you so sure he can't be cut down to size?"
"Never has been, never will be," the deck hand asserted. He regarded the surging lake morosely, and then said, "One of these days this old tub is goin' to end up right at the bottom of Michigan, it is. Either that or on the beach. Wish I was some'res else."
"Why don't you go somewhere else?"
"One of these days I will," the deck hand threatened. "I'll just haul off an' go back to the ocean boats, I will. I was on 'em for fourteen years, an' quit to come here on account I got scar't of storms at sea. Ha! Worstest thing I ever see on the Atlantic ain't nothin' to what this lake can throw at you."
"Is it really that bad?" Ramsay asked eagerly.
"Bad?" the deck hand said. "Boy, I've seen waves here taller'n a ship. In course nobody ever goes out when it's that bad on account, if they did, nobody'd ever get back." He scanned the horizon. "We're goin' to hit weather afore we ever gets to Three Points. Goin' to hit it sure. Wish this old tub wasn't loaded so heavy, an' with hides at that."
A wave struck the bow, crested and broke in foaming spray that cast itself up and over the ship. Ramsay felt it, cool on his face, and he licked eager lips. Lake Michigan was fresh water, not salt like the ocean, and it was as pure as an ice-cold artesian well. It was also, he thought, almost as cold.
He looked into the clouded horizon, studying the storm that battered the Holter. He smiled to himself.
Suddenly he became all eager interest, peering out into the driving waves and focusing his attention on one place. He thought he had seen something there, but because of the angry lake he could not be sure. It might have been just a drifting shadow, or just one more of the dark waves which seemed to fill the lake and to be of all shades. Then, and plainly, he saw it again.