blishing a bad precedent. I don't know but their
attitude is sound, after all. In sheer self-defense a man must make all
he can when he has a chance. You cannot indulge in philanthropy in a
business undertaking these days, Silent John."

"Granted," MacRae made answer. "I don't propose to be a philanthropist
myself. But you will get farther with a salmon fisherman, or any other
man whose labor you must depend on, if you accept the principle that he
is entitled to make a dollar as well as yourself, if you don't stretch
every point to take advantage of his necessity. These fellows who fish
around Squitty have been gouged and cheated a lot. They aren't fools.
They know pretty well who makes the long profit, who pile up moderate
fortunes while they get only a living, and not a particularly good
living 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 they
know also that they are getting more out of it than they ever got
before, 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't
it?" MacRae said. "You've had a hundred thousand salmon to pack which
you would not otherwise have had."

"Certainly," Stubby agreed. "I'm not questioning your logic. In this
case it has paid us both, and the fisherman as well. But suppose
everybody did it?"

"If you can pay sixty cents a fish, and fifteen per cent, on top of that
and pack profitably, why can't other canneries? Why can't Folly Bay meet
that competition? Rather, why won't they?"

"Matter of policy, maybe," Stubby hazarded. "Matter of keeping costs
down. Apart from a few little fresh-fish buyers, you are the only
operator on the Gulf who is cutting any particular ice. Gower may figure
that he will eventually get these fish at his own price. If I were
eliminated, 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 all
right. That Squitty Island bunch of trollers seem convinced you are the
whole noise in the salmon line. But without Crow Harbor where could you
unload such quantities of fish?"

It struck MacRae that there was something more tha