ed. "The Terminal is one of the weapons I intend
ultimately to use as a club on the heads of this group of gentlemen who
want to make a close corporation of the salmon industry on the British
Columbia coast. If I get by this season, I shall be in shape to show
them something. They will not bother about the Terminal, because the
Terminal is small. All the salmon they could take from you wouldn't hurt
Gower. What they want is to enable Gower to get up his usual fall pack.
It has taken him this long to get things shaped so he could call me off.
He can't reach a local concern like the Terminal. No, the Terminal will
continue to buy salmon from you, Jack. But you know they haven't the
facilities to handle a fourth of the salmon you have been running
lately."

"I'll see they get whatever they can use," MacRae declared. "And if it
is any satisfaction to you personally, Stub, I can assure you that I
shall continue to do business as usual."

Stubby looked curious.

"You've got something up your sleeve?"

"Yes," MacRae admitted. "No stuffed club, either. It's loaded. You wait
and keep your ears open."

MacRae's face twisted into a mirthless smile. His eyes glowed with the
fire that always blazed up in them when he thought too intensely of
Horace Gower and the past, or of Gower's various shifts to defeat him in
what he undertook. He had anticipated this move. He was angrily
determined that Gower should not get one more salmon, or buy what he got
a cent cheaper, by this latest strategy.

"You appear to like old Horace," Stubby said thoughtfully, "about as
much as our fellows used to like Fritz when he dropped high explosives
on supposedly bomb-proof shelters."

"Just about as much," MacRae said shortly. "Well, you'll transfer that
registry--when? I want to get back to Squitty as soon as possible."

"I'll go to town with you now, if you like," Stubby offered.

They acted on that. Within two hours MacRae was the owner of two motor
launches under British registry. Payment in full left him roughly with
five thousand dollars working capital, enough by only a narrow margin.
At sunset Vancouver was a smoky smudge on a far horizon. At dusk he
passed in the narrow mouth of Squitty Cove. The _Bluebird_ was swinging
about to go when her sister ship ranged alongside. Vincent Ferrara
dropped his hook again. There were forty trollers in the Cove. MacRae
called to them. They came in skiffs and dinghys, and when they were all
about his