brood of chicks. The fishermen had gathered on
the nearest boats. A dozen had clambered up and taken seats on the
_Blanco's_ low bulwarks. MacRae gained his own deck and looked at them.

"What's coming off?" he asked quietly. "You fellows holding a convention
of some sort?"

One of the men sitting on the big carrier's rail spoke.

"Folly Bay's quit--shut down," he said sheepishly. "We come to see if
you'd start buying again."

MacRae sat down on one sheave of his deck winch. He took out a cigarette
and lighted it, swung one foot back and forth. He did not make haste to
reply. An expectant hush fell on the crowd. In the slow-gathering dusk
there was no sound but the creak of rubbing gunwales, the low snore of
the sea breaking against the cliffs, and the chug-chug of the last
stragglers beating into the shelter of the Cove.

"He shut down the cannery," the fishermen's spokesman said at last. "We
ain't seen a buyer or collector for three days. The water's full of
salmon, an' we been suckin' our thumbs an' watching 'em play. If you
won't buy here again we got to go where there is buyers. And we'd
rather not do that. There's no place on the Gulf as good fishin' as
there is here now."

"What was the trouble?" MacRae asked absently. "Couldn't you supply him
with fish?"

"Nobody knows. There was plenty of salmon. He cut the price the day
after you tied up. He cut it to six bits. Then he shut down. Anyway, we
don't care why he shut down. It don't make no difference. What we want
is for you to start buyin' again. Hell, we're losin' money from daylight
to dark! The water's alive with salmon. An' the season's short. Be a
sport, MacRae."

MacRae laughed.

"Be a sport, eh?" he echoed with a trace of amusement in his tone. "I
wonder how many of you would have listened to me if I'd gone around to
you a week ago and asked you to give me a sporting chance?"

No one answered. MacRae threw away his half-smoked cigarette. He stood
up.

"All right, I'll buy salmon again," he said quietly. "And I won't ask
you to give me first call on your catch or a chance to make up some of
the money I lost bucking Folly Bay, or anything like that. But I want to
tell you something. You know it as well as I do, but I want to jog your
memory with it."

He raised his voice a trifle.

"You fellows know that I've always given you a square deal. You aren't
fishing for sport. You're at this to make a living, to make money if you
can. So am I. Yo