cted to behold as
soon as the southeaster ceased to whip the Gulf,--the _Bluebird_ and the
_Blackbird_, Jack MacRae's two salmon carriers. They were walking up to
Squitty in eight-knot boots. Through his glass Gower watched them lift
and fall, lurch and yaw, running with short bursts of speed on the crest
of a wave, laboring heavily in the trough, plowing steadily up through
uneasy waters to take the salmon that should go to feed the hungry
machines at Folly Bay.

Gower laid aside the glasses. He smoked a second cigar down to a stub,
resting his plump hands on his plump stomach. He resembled a thoughtful
Billiken in white flannels, a round-faced, florid, middle-aged Billiken.
By that time the two _Bird_ boats had come up and parted on the head of
Squitty. The _Bluebird_, captained by Vin Ferrara, headed into the Cove.
The _Blackbird_, slashing along with a bone in her teeth, rounded Poor
Man's Rock, cut across the mouth of Cradle Bay, and stood on up the
western shore.

"He knows every pot-hole where a troller can lie. He's not afraid of
wind or sea or work. No wonder he gets the fish. Those damned--"

Gower cut his soliloquy off in the middle to watch the _Blackbird_ slide
out of sight behind a point. He knew all about Jack MacRae's operations,
the wide swath he was cutting in the matter of blueback salmon. The
Folly Bay showing to date was a pointed reminder. Gower's cannery
foreman and fish collectors gave him profane accounts of MacRae's
indefatigable raiding,--as it suited them to regard his operations. What
Gower did not know he made it his business to find out. He sat now in
his grass chair, a short, compact body of a man, with a heavy-jawed,
powerful face frowning in abstraction. Gower looked younger than his
fifty-six years. There was little gray in his light-brown hair. His blue
eyes were clear and piercing. The thick roundness of his body was not
altogether composed of useless tissue. Even considered superficially he
looked what he really was, what he had been for many years,--a man
accustomed to getting things done according to his desire. He did not
look like a man who would fight with crude weapons--such as a pike
pole--but nevertheless there was the undeniable impression of latent
force, of aggressive possibilities, of the will and the ability to
rudely dispose of things which might become obstacles in his way. And
the current history of him in the Gulf of Georgia did not belie such an
impression.

H