CHAPTER X
Thrust and Counterthrust
By the time Jack MacRae was writing August on his sales slips he wasconscious of an important fact; namely, that nearly a hundred gas-boatfishermen, trolling Squitty Island, the Ballenas, Gray Rock, evenfarther afield to Yellow Rock Light and Lambert Channel, were compactlybehind him. They were still close to a period when they had beenremorselessly exploited. They were all for MacRae. Prices being equal,they preferred that he should have their fish. It was still vivid intheir astonished minds that he had shared profits with them withoutcompulsion, that he had boosted prices without competition, had put agreat many dollars in their pockets. Only those who earn a living asprecariously, as riskily and with as much patient labor as a salmonfisherman, can so well value a dollar. They had an abiding confidence,by this time, in Jack MacRae. They knew he was square, and they said so.In the territory his two carriers covered, MacRae was becoming theuncrowned salmon king. Other buyers cut in from time to time. They didnot fare well. The trollers would hold their salmon, even when somesporting independent offered to shade the current price. They wouldshake their heads if they knew either of the _Bird_ boats would be thereto take the fish. For when MacRae said he would be there, he was alwaysthere. In the old days they had been compelled to play one buyeragainst another. They did not have to do that with MacRae.
The Folly Bay collectors fared little better than outside buyers. InJuly Gower met MacRae's price by two successive raises. He stopped atthat. MacRae did not. Each succeeding run of salmon averaged greaterpoundage. They were worth more. MacRae paid fifty, fifty-five cents.When Gower stood pat at fifty-five, MacRae gave up a fourth of hiscontract percentage and paid sixty. It was like draw poker with theadvantage of the last raise on his side.
The salmon were worth the price. They were worth double to a cannerythat lay mostly idle for lack of fish. The salmon, now, were runningclose to six pounds each. The finished product was eighteen dollars acase in the market. There are forty-eight one-pound cans in a case. To aman familiar with packing costs it is a simple sum. MacRae oftenwondered why Gower stubbornly refused to pay more, when his collectingboats came back to the cannery so often with a few scattered salmon intheir holds. They were primitive folk, these salmon trollers. Theyjeered the unlucky collectors. Gower was losing his fishermen as well ashis fish. For the time, at least, the back of his long-held monopoly wasbroken.
MacRae got a little further light on this attitude from Stubby Abbott.
"He's figuring on making out a season's pack with cohoes, humps, and dogsalmon," Stubby told MacRae at the Crow Harbor cannery. "He expects towork his purse seiners overtime, and to hell with the individualfisherman. Norman was telling me. Old Horace has put Norman in charge atFolly Bay, you know."
MacRae nodded. He knew about that.
"The old boy is sore as a boil at you and me," Stubby chuckled. "Idon't blame him much. He has had a cinch there so long he thinks it'shis private pond. You've certainly put a crimp in the Folly Bay bluebackpack--to my great benefit. I don't suppose any one but you could havedone it either."
"Any one could," MacRae declared, "if he knew the waters, the men, andwas wise enough to play the game square. The trouble has been that eachbuyer wanted to make a clean-up on each trip. He wanted easy money. Thesalmon fisherman away up the coast practically has to take what isoffered him day by day, or throw his fish overboard. Canneries andbuyers alike have systematically given him the worst of the deal. Youdon't cut your cannery hands' pay because on certain days your packfalls off."
"Hardly."
"But canneries and collectors and every independent buyer have alwaysused any old pretext to cut the price to the fisherman out on thegrounds. And while a fisherman has to take what he is offered he doesn'thave to keep on taking it. He can quit, and try something else. Lots ofthem have done that. That's why there are three Japanese to every whitesalmon fisherman on the British Columbia coast. That is why we have anOriental problem. The Japs are making the canneries squeal, aren'tthey?"
"Rather." Stubby smiled. "They are getting to be a bit of a problem."
"The packers got them in here as cheap labor in the salmon fishing,"MacRae went on. "The white fisherman was too independent. He wanted allhe could get out of his work. He was a kicker, as well as a goodfisherman. The packers thought they could keep wages down and profitsup by importing the Jap--cheap labor with a low standard of living. Andthe Jap has turned the tables on the big fellows. They hang together, asaliens always do in a strange country, and the war has helped themfreeze the white fisherman out on one hand and exact more and more fromthe canneries on the other. And that would never have happened if thishad been kept a white man's country, and the white fisherman had got asquare deal."
"To buy as cheaply as you can and sell for as much as you can," Stubbyreminded him, "is a fundamental of business. You can't get away from it.My father abandoned that maxim the last two years of his life, and itnearly broke us. He was a public-spirited man. He took war and war-timeconditions to heart. In a period of jumping food costs he tried to givepeople cheaper food. As I said, he nearly went broke trying to do apublic service, because no one else in the same business departed fromthe business rule of making all they could. In fact, men in the samebusiness, I have since learned, were the first to sharpen their knivesfor him. He was establishing a bad precedent. I don't know but theirattitude is sound, after all. In sheer self-defense a man must make allhe can when he has a chance. You cannot indulge in philanthropy in abusiness undertaking these days, Silent John."
"Granted," MacRae made answer. "I don't propose to be a philanthropistmyself. But you will get farther with a salmon fisherman, or any otherman whose labor you must depend on, if you accept the principle that heis entitled to make a dollar as well as yourself, if you don't stretchevery point to take advantage of his necessity. These fellows who fisharound Squitty have been gouged and cheated a lot. They aren't fools.They know pretty well who makes the long profit, who pile up moderatefortunes while they get only a living, and not a particularly goodliving at that."
"Are you turning Bolshevik?" Stubby inquired with mock solicitude.
MacRae smiled.
"Hardly. Nor are the fishermen. They know I'm making money. But theyknow also that they are getting more out of it than they ever gotbefore, and that if I were not on the job they would get a lot less."
"They certainly would," Abbott drawled. "You have been, and are now,paying more for blueback salmon than any buyer on the Gulf."
"Well, it has paid me. And it has been highly profitable to you, hasn'tit?" MacRae said. "You've had a hundred thousand salmon to pack whichyou would not otherwise have had."
"Certainly," Stubby agreed. "I'm not questioning your logic. In thiscase it has paid us both, and the fisherman as well. But supposeeverybody did it?"
"If you can pay sixty cents a fish, and fifteen per cent, on top of thatand pack profitably, why can't other canneries? Why can't Folly Bay meetthat competition? Rather, why won't they?"
"Matter of policy, maybe," Stubby hazarded. "Matter of keeping costsdown. Apart from a few little fresh-fish buyers, you are the onlyoperator on the Gulf who is cutting any particular ice. Gower may figurethat he will eventually get these fish at his own price. If I wereeliminated, he would."
"I'd still be on the job," MacRae ventured.
"Would you, though?" Stubby asked doubtfully.
"Yes." MacRae made his reply positive in tone. "You could buy allright. That Squitty Island bunch of trollers seem convinced you are thewhole noise in the salmon line. But without Crow Harbor where could youunload such quantities of fish?"
It struck MacRae that there was something more than mere casualspeculation in Stubby's words. But he did not attempt to delve intomotives.
"A good general," he said with a dry smile, "doesn't advertise his planof campaign in advance. Without Crow Harbor as a market I could not havedone what I have done this season. But Crow Harbor could shut downto-morrow--and I'd go
on just the same."
Stubby poked thoughtfully with a pencil at the blotter on his desk.
"Well, Jack, I may as well be quite frank with you," he said at last. "Ihave had hints that may mean something. The big run will be over atSquitty in another month. I don't believe I can be dictated to on shortnotice. But I cannot positively say. If you can see your way to carryon, it will be quite a relief to me. Another season it may bedifferent."
"I think I can."
But though MacRae said this confidently, he was privately not so sure.From the very beginning he had expected pressure to come on Stubby, asthe active head of Crow Harbor. It was as Stubby said. Unlesshe--MacRae--had a market for his fish, he could not buy. And within thelimits of British Columbia the salmon market was subject to control; byjust what means MacRae had got inklings here and there. He had not beendeceived by the smoothness of his operations so far. Below the clearhorizon there was a storm gathering. A man like Gower did not lie downand submit passively to being beaten at his own game.
But MacRae believed he had gone too far to be stopped now, even if histactics did not please the cannery interests. They could have squelchedhim easily enough in the beginning, when he had no funds to speak of,when his capital was mostly a capacity for hard, dirty work and awillingness to take chances. Already he had run his original shoestringto fifteen thousand dollars cash in hand. It scarcely seemed possible.It gave him a startling vision of the profits in the salmon industry,and it was not a tenable theory that men who had controlled such asource of profits would sit idle while he undermined their monopoly.Nevertheless he had made that much money in four months. He had at hisback a hundred fishermen who knew him, liked him, trusted him, who wereanxious that he should prosper, because they felt that they were sharingin that prosperity. Ninety per cent. of these men had a grievanceagainst the canneries. And he had the good will of these men withsun-browned faces and hook-scarred hands. The human equation inindustrial processes is a highly important one, as older, wiser men thanJack MacRae had been a longer time discovering.
He did not try to pin Stubby to a more definite statement. A hint wasenough for MacRae. Stubby Abbott could also be depended upon to seethings beyond the horizon. If a storm broke Stubby was the mostvulnerable, because in a sense he was involved with the canneryinterests in general, and they would consider him an apostate and knifehim without mercy,--if they could. If the Abbott estate had debts,obligations which could be manipulated, if through the financialconvolutions of marketing the Crow Harbor pack Stubby could be reached,the Abbott family had property, a standard of living that stood forcomfort, appearance, luxury almost. There are always plenty of roadsopen to a flank attack on people like that; many levers, financial andotherwise, can be pulled for or against them.
So MacRae, knowing that Stubby must protect himself in a showdown, setabout fortifying his own approaches.
For a first move he hired an engineer, put Steve Ferrara in charge ofthe _Blackbird_, and started him back to Squitty. Then MacRae took thenext train to Bellingham, a cannery town which looks out on the southernend of the Gulf of Georgia from the American side of the boundary. Heextended his journey to Seattle. Altogether, he was gone three days.
When he came back he made a series of calls,--at the Vancouver officesof three different canneries and one of the biggest cold-storageconcerns on the Pacific Coast. He got a courteous but unsatisfactoryreception from the cannery men. He fared a little better with themanager of the cold-storage plant. This gentleman was tentativelyagreeable in the matter of purchasing salmon, but rather vague in theway of terms.
"Beginning with May next I can deliver any quantity up to two thousand aday, perhaps more, for a period of about four months," MacRae stated."What I should like to know is the percentage over the up-coast priceyou would pay."
But he could not pin the man down to anything definite. He would onlyspeak pleasantly of the market and possible arrangements, utter vaguecommonplaces in business terminology. MacRae rose.
"I'm wasting your time and my own," he said. "You don't want my fish.Why not say so?"
"We always want fish," the man declared, bending a shrewdly appraisingeye on MacRae. "Bring in the salmon and we will do business."
"On your own terms when my carriers are tied to your dock with acapacity load which I must sell or throw overboard within forty-eighthours," MacRae smiled. "No, I don't intend to go up against anytake-it-or-leave proposition like that. I don't have to."
"Well, we might allow you five per cent. That's about the usual thing onsalmon. And we would rather have salmon now than a promise of them nextseason."
"Oh, rats!" MacRae snorted. "I'm in the business to make money--notsimply to create dividends for your Eastern stockholders while I eke outa living and take all the risks. Come again."
The cold storage man smiled.
"Come and see me in the spring. Meantime, when you have a cargo ofsalmon, you might run them in to us. We'll pay market prices. It's up toyou to protect yourself in the buying."
MacRae went on about his business. He had not expected muchencouragement locally, so he did not suffer disappointment. He knewquite well what he could expect in Vancouver if Crow Harbor canceled hiscontract. He would bring in boatloads of salmon, and the dealers wouldsqueeze him, all but the Terminal Fish Company. And if the market couldbe controlled, if the men behind could dictate the Crow Harbor policy,they might also bring the Terminal into line. Even if they did not theTerminal could only handle a minor portion of the salmon he could getwhile the big run swirled around Squitty Island.
But MacRae was not downcast. He was only sober and thoughtful, which hadbecome characteristic of him in the last four months. He was forgettinghow to laugh, to be buoyant, to see the world through the rose-coloredglasses of sanguine youth. He was becoming a living exampler of hisnickname. Even Stubby Abbott marked this when Jack came back fromBellingham.
"Come on out to the house," Stubby urged. "Your men can handle the job aday or two longer. Forget the grind for once. It's getting you."
"No, I don't think it is," MacRae denied. "But a man can't play andproduce at the same time. I have to keep going."
He did go out to Abbott's one evening, however, and suffered a good dealof teasing from Nelly over his manhandling of Sam Kaye. A lot of otheryoung people happened to foregather there. They sang and flirted andpresently moved the rugs off the living-room floor and danced to aphonograph. MacRae found himself a little out of it, by inclination. Hewas tired, without knowing quite what was the matter with him. A man,even a young and sturdy man, cannot work like a horse for months on end,eating his meals anyhow and sleeping when he can, without losingtemporarily the zest for careless fun. For another thing, he foundhimself looking at these immaculate young people as any hard-drivenworker must perforce look upon drones.
They were sons and daughters of the well-to-do, divorced from alluncouthness, with pretty manners and good clothes. They seemed serene inthe assurance--MacRae got this impression for the first time in hissocial contact with them--that wearing good clothes, behaving well,giving themselves whole-heartedly to having a good time, was the mostimportant and satisfying thing in the world. They moved in an atmosphereof considering these things their due, a birthright, their natural andproper condition of well-being.
And MacRae found himself wondering what they gave or ever expected togive in return for this pleasant security of mind and body. Some one hadto pay for it, the silks and georgettes and white flannels, furs andstrings of pearls and gold trinkets, the good food, the motor cars, andthe fun.
He knew a little about every one he met that evening, for in Vancouveras in any other community which has developed a social life beyond thepurely primitive stages of association, people gravitate into sets andcliques. They lived in good homes, they had servants, they week-endedhere and there. Of the dozen or more young men and women present, onlyhimself and Stubby Abbott made any pretense at work.
Yet somebody paid for all they had and did. Men in offic
es, in shops, infishing boats and mines and logging camps worked and sweated to pay forall this well-being in which they could have no part. MacRae evensuspected that a great many men had died across the sea that this sortof thing should remain the inviolate privilege of just such people asthese. It was not an inspiring conclusion.
He smiled to himself. How they would stare if he should voice thesestray thoughts in plain English. They would cry out that he was aBolshevik. Absolutely! He wondered why he should think such things. Hewasn't disgruntled. He wanted a great many things which these youngpeople of his own age had gotten from fairy godmothers,--in the shape ofpioneer parents who had skimmed the cream off the resources of adeveloping frontier and handed it on to their children, and whothemselves so frequently kept in the background, a little in awe oftheir gilded offspring. MacRae meant to beat the game as it was beingplayed. He felt that he was beating it. But nothing would be handed himon a silver salver. Fortune would not be bestowed upon him in any easy,soft-handed fashion. He would have to render an equivalent for what hegot. He wondered if the security of success so gained would have anygreater value for him than it would have for those who took theirblessings so lightly.
This kink of analytical reasoning was new to MacRae, and it kept himfrom entering whole-heartedly into the joyous frivolity which functionedin the Abbott home that evening. He had never found himself in thatcritical mood before. He did not want to prattle nonsense. He did notwant to think, and he could not help thinking. He had a curious sense ofdetachment from what was going on, even while he was a part of it. So hedid not linger late.
The _Blackbird_ had discharged at Crow Harbor late in the afternoon. Shelay now at a Vancouver slip. By eleven o'clock he was aboard in hisbunk, still thinking when he should have been asleep, staring wide-eyedat dim deck beams, his mind flitting restlessly from one thing toanother. Steve Ferrara lay in the opposite bunk, wheezing his breath inand out of lungs seared by poison gas in Flanders. Smells of seaweed andtide-flat wafted in through open hatch and portholes. A full moon thrustsilver fingers through deck openings. Gradually the softened medley ofharbor noises lulled MacRae into a dreamless sleep. He only wakened atthe clank of the engine and the shudder of the _Blackbird's_ timbers asSteve backed her out of her berth in the first faint gleam of dawn.
The _Blackbird_ made her trip and a second and a third, which broughtthe date late in August. On his delivery, when the salmon in her holdhad been picarooned to the cannery floor, MacRae went up to the office.Stubby had sent for him. He looked uncomfortable when Jack came in.
"What's on your mind now?" MacRae asked genially.
"Something damned unpleasant," Stubby growled.
"Shoot," MacRae said. He sat down and lit a cigarette.
"I didn't think they could do it," Abbott said slowly. "But it seemsthey can. I guess you'll have to lay off the Gower territory after all,Jack."
"You mean _you_ will," MacRae replied. "I've been rather expecting that.Can Gower hurt you?"
"Not personally. But the banks--export control--there are so many anglesto the cannery situation. There's nothing openly threatened. But it hasbeen made perfectly clear to me that I'll be hampered and harassed tillI won't know whether I'm afoot or on horseback, if I go on paying a fewcents more for salmon in order to keep my plant working efficiently.Damn it, I hate it. But I'm in no position to clash with the rest of thecannery crowd and the banks too. I hate to let you down. You've pulledme out of a hole. I don't know a man who would have worked at your pitchand carried things off the way you have. If I had this pack marketed, Icould snap my fingers at them. But I haven't. There's the rub. I hate toditch you in order to insure myself--get in line at somebody else'sdictation."
"Don't worry about me," MacRae said gently. "I have no cannery and nopack to market through the regular channels. Nor has the bank advancedme any funds. You are not responsible for what I do. And neither Gowernor the Packers' Association nor the banks can stop me from buyingsalmon so long as I have the money to pay the fishermen and carriers tohaul them, can they?"
"No, but the devil of it is they can stop you _selling_," Stubbylamented bitterly. "I tell you there isn't a cannery on the Gulf willpay you a cent more than they pay the fishermen. What's the use ofbuying if you can't sell?"
MacRae did not attempt to answer that.
"Let's sum it up," he said. "You can't take any more bluebacks fromGower's territory. That, I gather, is the chief object. I suppose theyknow as much about your business as you know yourself. Am I to bedeprived of the two boat charters into the bargain?"
"No, by the Lord," Stubby swore. "Not if you want them. My generalpolicy may be subject to dictation, but not the petty details of mybusiness. There's a limit. I won't stand for that."
"Put a fair price on the _Birds_, and I'll buy 'em both," MacRaesuggested. "You had them up for sale, anyway. That will let you out, sofar as my equipment is concerned."
"Five thousand each," Stubby said promptly.
"They're good value at that. And I can use ten thousand dollars toadvantage, right now."
"I'll give you a check. I want the registry transferred to me at once,"MacRae continued. "That done, you can cease worrying over me, Stub.You've been square, and I've made money on the deal. You would befoolish to fight unless you have a fighting chance. Oh, another thing.Will the Terminal shut off on me, too?"
"No," Stubby declared. "The Terminal is one of the weapons I intendultimately to use as a club on the heads of this group of gentlemen whowant to make a close corporation of the salmon industry on the BritishColumbia coast. If I get by this season, I shall be in shape to showthem something. They will not bother about the Terminal, because theTerminal is small. All the salmon they could take from you wouldn't hurtGower. What they want is to enable Gower to get up his usual fall pack.It has taken him this long to get things shaped so he could call me off.He can't reach a local concern like the Terminal. No, the Terminal willcontinue to buy salmon from you, Jack. But you know they haven't thefacilities to handle a fourth of the salmon you have been runninglately."
"I'll see they get whatever they can use," MacRae declared. "And if itis any satisfaction to you personally, Stub, I can assure you that Ishall continue to do business as usual."
Stubby looked curious.
"You've got something up your sleeve?"
"Yes," MacRae admitted. "No stuffed club, either. It's loaded. You waitand keep your ears open."
MacRae's face twisted into a mirthless smile. His eyes glowed with thefire that always blazed up in them when he thought too intensely ofHorace Gower and the past, or of Gower's various shifts to defeat him inwhat he undertook. He had anticipated this move. He was angrilydetermined that Gower should not get one more salmon, or buy what he gota cent cheaper, by this latest strategy.
"You appear to like old Horace," Stubby said thoughtfully, "about asmuch as our fellows used to like Fritz when he dropped high explosiveson supposedly bomb-proof shelters."
"Just about as much," MacRae said shortly. "Well, you'll transfer thatregistry--when? I want to get back to Squitty as soon as possible."
"I'll go to town with you now, if you like," Stubby offered.
They acted on that. Within two hours MacRae was the owner of two motorlaunches under British registry. Payment in full left him roughly withfive thousand dollars working capital, enough by only a narrow margin.At sunset Vancouver was a smoky smudge on a far horizon. At dusk hepassed in the narrow mouth of Squitty Cove. The _Bluebird_ was swingingabout to go when her sister ship ranged alongside. Vincent Ferraradropped his hook again. There were forty trollers in the Cove. MacRaecalled to them. They came in skiffs and dinghys, and when they were allabout his stern and some perched in sea boots along the _Blackbird's_low bulwarks, MacRae said what he had to say.
"Gower has come alive. My market for fish bought in Gower's territory isclosed, so far as Crow Harbor is concerned. If I can't sell salmon Ican't buy them from you. How much do you think Folly Bay will pay foryour fish?"
He waited a minute. The fishermen looked at him in the yellow lanternlight, at each other. They shifted uneasily. No one answered hisquestion.
MacRae went on.
"You can guess what will happen. You will be losers. So will I. I don'tlike the idea of being frozen out of the salmon-buying business, nowthat I have got my hand in. I don't intend to be. As long as I canhandle a load of salmon I'll make the run. But I've got to run themfarther, and you fellows will have to wait a bit for me now and then,perhaps. The cannery men hang together. They are making it bad for mebecause I'm paying a few cents more for salmon. They have choked offCrow Harbor. Gower is hungry for cheap salmon. He'll get them, too, ifyou let him head off outside buyers. Since I'm the only buyer coveringthese grounds, it's up to you, more than ever, to see that I keepcoming. That's all. Tell the rest of the fishermen what I say wheneveryou happen to run across them."
They became articulate. They plied MacRae with questions. He answeredtersely, as truthfully as he could. They cursed Folly Bay and thecanneries in general. But they were not downcast. They did not seemapprehensive that Folly Bay would get salmon for forty cents. MacRae hadsaid he would still buy. For them that settled it. They would not haveto sell their catch to Folly Bay for whatever price Gower cared to set.Presently they began to drift away to their boats, to bed, for theirwork began in that gray hour between dawn and sunrise when the schoolingsalmon best strike the trolling spoon.
One lingered, a returned soldier named Mullen, who had got his dischargein May and gone fishing. Mullen had seen two years in the trenches. Hesat in his skiff, scowling up at MacRae, talking about the salmonpackers, about fishing.
"Aw, it's the same everywhere," he said cynically. "They all want acinch, easy money, big money. Looks like the more you have, the more youcan grab. Folly Bay made barrels of coin while the war was on. Why can'tthey give us fellers a show to make a little now? But they don't give adamn, so long as they get theirs. And then they wonder why some of usguys that went to France holler about the way we find things when wecome home."
He pushed his skiff away into the gloom that rested upon the Cove.
The _Bluebird_ was packed with salmon to her hatch covers. There hadbeen a fresh run. The trollers were averaging fifty fish to a man daily.MacRae put Vincent Ferrara aboard the _Blackbird_, himself took over theloaded vessel, and within the hour was clear of Squitty's duskyheadlands, pointing a course straight down the middle of the Gulf. Hisman turned in to sleep. MacRae stood watch alone, listening to theka-_choof_, ka-_choof_ of the exhaust, the murmuring swash of calm watercleft by the _Bluebird's_ stem. Away to starboard the Ballenas lightwinked and blinked its flaming eye to seafaring men as it had done inhis father's time. Miles to port the Sand Heads lightship swung to itsgreat hawsers off the Fraser River shoals.
MacRae smiled contentedly. There was a long run ahead. But he felt thathe had beaten Gower in this first definite brush. Moving in deviouschannels to a given end Gower had closed the natural markets to MacRae.
But there was no law against the export of raw salmon to a foreigncountry. MacRae could afford to smile. Over in Bellingham there weresalmon packers who, like Folly Bay, were hungry for fish to feed theirgreat machines. But--unlike Folly Bay--they were willing to pay theprice, any price in reason, for a supply of salmon. Their own carrierslater in the season would invade Canadian waters, so many thorns in theample sides of the British Columbia packers. "The damned Americans!"they sometimes growled, and talked about legislation to keep Americanfish buyers out. Because the American buyer and canner alike would spenda dollar to make a dollar. And the British Columbia packers wanted acinch, a monopoly, which in a measure they had. They were ananachronism, MacRae felt. They regarded the salmon and the salmon watersof the British Columbia coast as the feudal barons of old jealouslyregarded their special prerogatives. MacRae could see them growling andgrumbling, he could see most clearly the scowl that would spread overthe face of Mr. Horace A. Gower, when he learned that ten to twentythousand Squitty Island salmon were passing down the Gulf each week toan American cannery; that a smooth-faced boy out of the Air Service wasputting a crimp in the ancient order of things so far as one particularcannery was concerned.
This notion amused MacRae, served to while away the hours of monotonousplowing over an unruffled sea, until he drove down abreast the FraserRiver's mouth and passed in among the nets and lights of the sockeyefleet drifting, a thousand strong, on the broad bosom of the Gulf. Thenhe had to stand up to his steering wheel and keep a sharp lookout, lesthe foul his propellor in a net or cut down some careless fisherman whodid not show a riding light.