man shook his head.

"No. We can't afford to boost the cost of salmon like that. It'll ruin
the business, which is in a bad enough way as it is. The more you pay a
fisherman, the more he wants. We must keep prices down. That is to your
interest, too."

"No," MacRae disagreed. "I think it is to my interest to pay the
fishermen top prices, so long as I make a profit on the deal. I don't
want the earth--only a moderate share of it."

"Twenty per cent. on Folly Bay prices is too uncertain a basis."
Robbin-Steele changed his tactics. "We can send our own carriers there
to buy at far less cost."

MacRae smiled.

"You can send your carriers," he drawled, "but I doubt if you would get
many fish. I don't think you quite grasp the Squitty situation."

"Yes, I think I do," Robbin-Steele returned. "Gower had things pretty
much his own way until you cut in on his grounds. You have undoubtedly
secured quite an advantage in a peculiar manner, and possibly you feel
secure against competition. But your hold is not so strong as Gower's
once was. Let me tell you, your hold on that business can be broken, my
young friend."

"Undoubtedly," MacRae readily admitted. "But there is a world-wide
demand for canned salmon, and I have not suffered for a market--even
when influence was used last season to close the home market against me,
on Folly Bay's behalf. And I am quite sure, from what I have seen and
heard, that many of the big British Columbia packers like yourself are
so afraid the labor situation will get out of hand that they would shut
down their plants rather than pay fishermen what they could afford to
pay if they would be content with a reasonable profit. So I am not at
all afraid of you seducing the Squitty trollers with high prices."

"You are laboring under the common error about cannery profits,"
Robbin-Steele declared pointedly. "Considering the capital invested, the
total of the pack, the risk and uncertainty of the business, our returns
are not excessive."

MacRae smiled amusedly.

"That all depends on what you regard as excessive. But there is nothing
to be gained by an argument on that subject. Canning salmon is a highly
profitable business, but it would not be the gold mine it has been if
canneries hadn't been fostered at the expense of the men who actually
catch the fish, if the government hadn't bestowed upon cannery men the
gift of a strangle hold on the salmon grounds, and license privileges
that gave them