lair led him away. As the little procession moved silently down the
dock the crowd parted respectfully. Eyes that were hard, softened.
Fishermen took off their hats, holding them awkwardly in their red
hands. Fisherwomen looked down at the rough boards and crossed
themselves devoutly.

The cortege passed on. Turning from the dock they threaded their way
down the narrow street leading to the town. As they neared the alien
docks, the dusky fishermen uncovered and drew together, awed by the
presence of the great shadow.

Gregory's arm brushed against a man leaning carelessly against the
wharf-rail. Raising his eyes from the ground, he beheld the one man of
all the villagers who had remained unmoved, unsoftened by the spectacle.
With his red cap shoved back upon his shining black hair the insolent
stranger stood looking on with folded arms. Gregory noticed that Mascola
had not even taken the trouble to remove the cigarette which hung damply
from his lips.

For an instant the two men looked deep into each other's eyes. Then the
procession passed on.

CHAPTER III

TANGLED THREADS

The death of his father hurled Kenneth Gregory into a new world--a world
of unfamiliar faces, of strange standards of value, of vastly different
problems--the world of business.

Kenneth Gregory had taken this world as he found it. There had been no
time to moralize upon the situation into which the spinning of the wheel
had plunged him. There was work to do.

Securing his discharge from the army he had turned to the task of
settling up his father's estate. The fact that he was the sole heir and
legal executor simplified matters. But there were complications. These
he had unraveled with the aid of Farnsworth, the attorney for the
estate. Then he had come to Legonia and found plenty to do.

Blair, the former manager of the Legonia Fish Cannery, had suffered an
attack of pneumonia and was ill at a neighboring sanitarium. From him he
could therefore learn nothing. The books of the company told him but
little more. Now he was going over the private papers in his father's
office.

"Are you the boss?"

Kenneth Gregory turned from his perusal of a file of letters and faced a
young man standing in the doorway. Gregory nodded.

"I'm the owner," he replied pleasantly, noting the well-worn,
much-patched service uniform of the stranger. "And for the time being,
boss. My manager is sick. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Yes. You c