m
casually by fishermen. Fish buyers repeated it, sometimes with a touch
of indignation. That was one of their wails,--the fish combine. It was
air-tight, they said. The packers had a strangle hold on the fishing
waters, and the big local fish houses had the same unrelenting grip on
the market.

Therefore the ultimate consumer--whose exploitation was the prize plum
of commercial success--paid thirty cents per pound for spring salmon
that a fisherman chivied about in the tumbling Gulf seas fifty miles
up-coast had to take fourteen cents for. As for the salmon packers, the
men who pack the good red fish in small round tins which go to all the
ends of the earth to feed hungry folk,--well, no one knew _their_
profits. Their pack was all exported. The back yards of Europe are
strewn with empty salmon cans bearing a British Columbia label. But they
made money enough to be a standing grievance to those unable to get in
on this bonanza.

MacRae, however, was chiefly concerned with the local trade in fresh
salmon. His plan didn't look quite so promising as when he mulled over
it at Squitty Cove. He put out feelers and got no hold. A fresh-fish
buyer operating without approved market connections might make about
such a living as the fishermen he bought from. To Jack MacRae, eager and
sanguine, making a living was an inconspicuous detail. Making a
living,--that was nothing to him. A more definite spur roweled his
flank.

It looked like an air-tight proposition, he admitted, at last. But, he
said to himself, anything air-tight could be punctured. And undoubtedly
a fine flow of currency would result from such a puncture. So he kept
on looking about, asking casual questions, listening. In the language of
the street he was getting wise.

Incidentally he enjoyed himself. The battle ground had been transferred
to Paris. The pen, the typewriter, and the press dispatch, with immense
reserves of oratory and printer's ink, had gone into action. And the
soldiers were coming home,--officers of the line and airmen first, since
to these leave and transportation came easily, now that the guns were
silent. MacRae met fellows he knew. A good many of them were well off,
had homes in Vancouver. They were mostly young and glad the big show was
over. And they had the social instinct. During intervals of fighting
they had rubbed elbows with French and British people of consequence.
They had a mind to enjoy themselves.

MacRae had a record in two