MacRae knew it.
He knew that the fishermen knew it,--and he had a suspicion that Folly
Bay might not be unaware, or averse, to Sam Kaye taking a fall out of
him. Folly Bay had tried other unpleasant tricks.

"That doesn't go for you, Kaye," he said quietly. "I know your game. Get
off my boat and take your fish with you."

Sam Kaye glowered threateningly. He had cowed men before with the
fierceness of his look. He was long-armed and raw-boned, and he rather
fancied himself in a rough and tumble. He was quite blissfully ignorant
that Jack MacRae was stewing under his outward calmness. Kaye took a
step forward, with an intimidating thrust of his jaw.

MacRae smashed him squarely in the mouth with a straight left, and
hooked him somewhere on the chin with a wicked right cross. Either blow
was sufficient to knock any ordinary man down. There was a deceptive
power in MacRae's slenderness, which was not so much slenderness as
perfect bodily symmetry. He weighed within ten pounds as much as Sam
Kaye, although he did not look it, and he was as quick as a playful
kitten. Kaye went down, as told before. He lifted a dazed countenance
above the cockpit as MacRae shoved his craft clear.

The fishermen broke the silence with ribald laughter. They knew Kaye's
game too.

MacRae left Folly Bay later in the afternoon, poorer by many dollars
paid for rotten salmon. He wasn't in a particularly genial mood. The Sam
Kaye affair had come at an inopportune moment. He didn't care to stand
out as a bruiser. Still, he asked himself irritably, why should he care
because Nelly Abbott and Betty Gower had seen him using his fists? He
was perfectly justified. Indeed, he knew very well he could have done
nothing else. The trailers had chortled over the outcome. These were
matters they could understand and appreciate. Even Steve Ferrara looked
at him enviously.

"It makes me wish I'd dodged the gas," Steve said wistfully. "It's hell
to wheeze your breath in and out. By jiminy, you're wicked with your
hands, Jack. Did you box much in France?"

"Quite a lot," MacRae replied. "Some of the fellows in our squadron were
pretty clever. We used the gloves quite a bit."

"And you're naturally quick," Steve drawled. "Now, me, the gas has
cooked my goose. I'd have to bat Kaye over the head with an oar. Gee, he
sure got a surprise."

They both laughed. Even upon his bloody face--as he rose out of his own
fish hold--bewildered astonishment had been Sam Kay