“A pure accident,” he said, and washed it carelessly.

“Hit ain’t neither,” she said shrewdly. “Did Zeke git you?”

He shook his head.

She had a basic fear of treachery.

“Mart, Boyter and them ain’t turned on you?”

“No. Now Florry, don’t git worrit up over nothin’. They ain’t nary thing the matter.”

She could get no further satisfaction. In her isolation from the village life, five miles away, the tale did not reach her.

After a summer of brooding inactivity, Zeke took heart to go after the fishermen. He had a sullen nature, and long pondering through the hot dog days finally inflamed him. He appeared on the lake restlessly, day and night, with an obtrusive shotgun. He had been taunted here and derided there. Cohorts of the fishing faction laughed at him openly. His own friends advised him that it was a job for a man from another part of the county.

Cap’n Tack decided to end the matter once and for all. He drew out his several hundreds of dollars in postal savings and invested in a fast little motorboat for the use of the seiners. Old man Boyter planned the campaign. His headquarters were in the Pocket, a lake-cove deep-indented in the hammock on the north shore. No one could slip in unobserved. Cap’n Tack and old Boyter decided to concentrate. The fishermen gathered in all the traps and piled them high in the Pocket. They would not leave them in the lake for Zeke to pick off, like a chicken-hawk picking off biddies. All the men were assigned to a few boats, and intensive seining was done openly, in the daytime. They dared Zeke to trouble them.

In the unbearable, sultry days of early September Zeke foamed at the mouth. His motor followed the big new one around and around the lake. When old Boyter was through for the day, he shot in to the Pocket, and Zeke, frenzied though he might be, kept out.

The first day of the September gales lashed the lake into the peculiar fury of inland waters. It was impossible to venture out more than a few yards from shore. The wind was followed by a tropical deluge of rain that obscured both water and land. It was agreed by the fishermen that Zeke in his cowardice would be sitting safe by his light-wood hearth fire. They left the Pocket and went home to their own.

“Mart,” said Florry, after the rain had lifted, “ain’t that smoke yonder in the Pocket?”

Zeke had gone in by land and made one gigantic bonfire of traps, seines, rowboats and the new motorboat.

“You buzzards should of knowed better,” Cap’n Tack said mildly. “You should of had you some watchment. I’m thu with fishin’. I got no cash money to start you off agin. Go git you a job for hoe-hands.”