, clothed, directed, master of his own
acts only in supreme moments. There was an unconscious reaction from
that high pitch. Being his own man again and a trifle uncertain what to
do, he did nothing at all for a time. He made one trip to Vancouver, to
learn by just what legal processes the MacRae lands had passed into the
Gower possession. He found out what he wanted to know easily enough.
Gower had got his birthright for a song. Donald MacRae had borrowed six
thousand dollars through a broker. The land was easily worth double,
even at wild-land valuation. But old Donald's luck had run true to form.
He had not been able to renew the loan. The broker had discounted the
mortgage in a pinch. A financial house had foreclosed and sold the place
to Gower,--who had been trying to buy it for years, through different
agencies. His father's papers told young MacRae plainly enough through
what channels the money had gone. Chance had functioned on the wrong
side for his father.

So Jack went back to Squitty and stayed in the old house, talked with
the fishermen, spent a lot of his time with old Peter Ferrara and Dolly.
Always he was casting about for a course of action which would give him
scope for two things upon which his mind was set: to get the title to
that six hundred acres revested in the MacRae name, and, in Jack's own
words to Dolores Ferrara, to take a fall out of Horace Gower that would
jar the bones of his ancestors.

With Christmas the Ferrara clan gathered at the Cove, all the stout and
able company of Dolly Ferrara's menfolk. It had seemed to MacRae a
curious thing that Dolly was the only woman of all the Ferraras. There
had been mothers in the Ferrara family, or there could not have been so
many capable uncles and cousins. But in MacRae's memory there had never
been any mothers or sisters or daughters save Dolly.

There were nine male Ferraras when Jack MacRae went to France. Dolores'
father was dead. Uncle Peter was a bachelor. He had two brothers, and
each brother had bred three sons. Four of these sons had left their
boats and gear to go overseas. Two of them would never come back. The
other two were home,--one after a whiff of gas at Ypres, the other with
a leg shorter by two inches than when he went away. These two made
nothing of their disabilities, however; they were home and they were
nearly as good as ever. That was enough for them. And with the younger
boys and their fathers they came to old Peter's hou