nt
in the circle of light. From the hillside above the town lights gleamed
from the windows of the fishing colony, the intervening spaces of
darkness narrowing second by second until the village stood out like a
great checker-board of lights and shadows. Against the background of
lights he could see the slender figure of the girl passing among the
huge fishermen who towered like giants above her. Radiating energy
wherever she went, criticizing some, commending others and joking away
the early-morning grouch, she directed the movements of the constantly
increasing stream of men who thronged the dock and despatched the boats
one by one into the darkness.

When she returned to Gregory's side for a moment she held in her hand a
tattered pair of rubber-soled shoes. "They're better than nothing," she
explained. "When you are a full-fledged fisherman you won't need shoes.
You'll get so you can use your toes like fingers and----"

The rays of her flash-light, which swept the wharf as she spoke,
suddenly brought into view the figure of a man lunging unsteadily along
the dock. Leaving her sentence unfinished, she was by his side in an
instant.

"Nothing doing, Jack. Go home and go to bed. I know all about your
wife's sick aunt. No time to listen now. If you're sober by afternoon
you can go out with the boys drifting."

The fisherman started to expostulate but she had already left him.
Mumbling that she didn't know what sickness was, he stumbled obediently
away in the direction of the shore.

"He's been drunk since Tuesday," she announced as she rejoined Gregory.
"Too bad, too. Best man I've got in shallow water. You ought to see him
handle a dory in the surf."

Again the light picked out a newcomer who stood hesitating a few feet
away. "What's the trouble, Pete? Why aren't you on the job?"

"I've got to have more money." The words were spoken boldly and in a
tone which drew the attention of all about. A number of fishermen
shuffled nearer the speaker and ranged themselves beyond the circle of
light within easy hearing distance.

"You want more money," Dickie Lang repeated slowly. "Well about the only
reason I could ever think of for paying you any more would be for your
nerve in asking for it. Why, I've lost more through your carelessness
since you've been on the job than I could make on you in six months. The
first shot out of the box you let a piece of barracuda-webbing go adrift
and Mascola's gang picked it up right