way to France. And old Donald had put them here safely against his
return. Jack stared at them, blinking. He was full of a dumb protest. It
didn't seem right. Nothing seemed right. In young MacRae's mind there
was nothing terrible about death. He had become used to that. But he had
imagination. He could see his father going on day after day, month after
month, year after year, enduring, uncomplaining. Gauged by what his
father had written, by what Dolly Ferrara had supplied when he
questioned her, these last months must have been gray indeed. And he had
died without hope or comfort or a sight of his son.

That was what made young MacRae blink and struggle with a lump in his
throat. It hurt.

He walked away around the end of the Cove without definite objective. He
was suddenly restless, seeking relief in movement. Sitting still and
thinking had become unbearable. He found himself on the path that ran
along the cliffs and followed that, coming out at last on the neck of
Point Old where he could look down on the broken water that marked Poor
Man's Rock.

The lowering cloud bank of his home-coming day had broken in heavy rain.
That had poured itself out and given place to a southeaster. The wind
was gone now, the clouds breaking up into white drifting patches with
bits of blue showing between, and the sun striking through in yellow
shafts which lay glittering areas here and there on the Gulf. The swell
that runs after a blow still thundered all along the southeast face of
Squitty, bursting _boom_--_boom_--_boom_ against the cliffs, shooting
spray in white cascades. Over the Rock the sea boiled.

There were two rowboats trolling outside the heavy backwash from the
cliffs. MacRae knew them both. Peter Ferrara was in one, Long Tom Spence
in the other. They did not ride those gray-green ridges for pleasure,
nor drop sidling into those deep watery hollows for joy of motion. They
were out for fish, which meant to them food and clothing. That was their
work.

They were the only fisher folk abroad that morning. The gasboat men had
flitted to more sheltered grounds. MacRae watched these two lift and
fall in the marching swells. It was cold. Winter sharpened his teeth
already. The rowers bent to their oars, tossing and lurching. MacRae
reflected upon their industry. In France he had eaten canned salmon
bearing the Folly Bay label, salmon that might have been taken here by
the Rock, perhaps by the hands of these very men, by his