The circular fishing net, which had for so unusual a purpose been lowered into the lake at the dead of night and brought up later, quite empty, belonged to a youth, known among his acquaintances as “Snowball.” Snowball was black, very black indeed.
When Snowball arrived at his net next morning he found a white man sitting by his windlass. This young man’s eye had a glint of blue steel in it that set the black boy’s knees quivering.
“That your net?” The stranger nodded toward the lake.
“Yaas, sir!”
“Deep down there?”
“Tol’able deep. Yaas, sir.”
“Swim?”
“Who? Me? Yaas, sir.”
“Here.” The man slipped a bill between two boards and left it fluttering there. “Skin off and dive down there. Black package down there. See? Bring it up. See?”
“Yaas, sir. Oh, yas, yas, sir.” There surely was something strange about the glint of those eyes.