Poor Man's Rock

pring

appointed, to inquire into the fresh-salmon trade. He talked to men who caught salmon and to men who sold them, both wholesale and retail. He apprised himself of the ins and outs of salmon canning, and of the independent fish col

e was not long running afoul of the rumor that the wholesale fish men controlled the retail price of fresh fish by the simple method of controlling the supply, which they managed by co?peration instead of competition among themselves. He heard this stated. And more,-that behind the big dealers stood the shadowy figure of the

st 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. Thei

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.

t could be punctured. And undoubtedly a fine flow of currency would result from such a puncture. So he ke

re 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

would never have known of his existence save for the circumstance of war. Pretty, well-bred girls smiled at him, partly because airmen with notable records were still a novelty, and partly because Jack MacRae was worth a second look fr

c. He liked nice people. He liked people who were nice to him. But he seldom lost sight of his objective. These people

aving a top-hole time, but it'll be different when I plant myself at a desk in some broker's office at a hundred and fifty a mont

had a different target, and his eye did not wander far from the mark. And perhaps because of this, c

New York or the Fairmont to San Francisco,-a place where one can see everybody that is anybody if one lingers long enough. And almost the first man he m

earnestly on the back, and haled him strai

ump, middle-aged woman, "

lit up pl

e seal of sincerity on her words. "I've wanted to thank you. You can scarce

ae s

hat were part of the game. Stubb used to pul

r," Mrs. Abbott said fervently. "P

ith Stubby and a slim young thing in orange satin whose talk ran undeviatingly upon dances and sports and motor trips, past and anticipated. Listening to her, Jack MacRae fell dumb. Her father was worth half a million. Jack wondered how much of it he would give to endow his daughter with a capacit

tt was eyi

you, eh?" sh

terance carries me out of my depth, I'm

you tried," Stubby grinned

ause you stop talking now and then to think? Most of us don't, you know. Tell

ed. "I went over in the ranks, you see. So I couldn't very well kno

about that he pulled every string to keep away from the front,-that all he has don

t home, except to envy them." MacRae evaded

she talking to Stubby. Come over and meet her. They've be

ower clan was focused on Horace Gower. His feeling had not abated a jot. But it was a personal matter, something to remain locked in his own breast.

a moment, the four of th

you wit

bbin-St

out to the house to-morrow," Stubby said. "The mater

ldn't find himself chatty with Betty Gower. She was graceful and clear-eyed, a vigorously healthy girl with a touch of

ey had circled half the room, "it was wor

oked down at her, puzz

l bothering you? Do you take everythin

she replied. "You were uncompromisingly hostile that day, fo

ing," he

rt of looking on the bright

ds, silk dresses and ropes of pearls," he drawled. "Wo

ed." She looked him

gainst Betty Gower except that she was the daughter of her father. And he couldn't explain to her that he hated her father because of injustice and injury done before either of them was born. In the genial atmosphere of the Granada that sort of thing did not seem nearly so real, so vivid, as when he stood on the cliffs of Squitty listening to the pound of the surf. Then it welled up in him like a flood,-the resentment for all that Gower had made his father suffer, for those thirty years of reprisal which had culminated i

Abbott's request and, getting on a car, rode out to the Abbott home. This was a roomy stone house occupying a sightly corner in the West End,-that sharply defined residential area of Vancouver which real estate agents unctuously speak of as "select." Th

minutes' exchange of pleasantr

m this man," Stubby said at length. "You can h

ll?" Nelly demanded. "

stairs into a small cheerful room lined with bookshelves, warmed by glowing coals

e fire, waved Jack to one, and ex

y homes in town lately," MacRae obs

t way, though. Remember some of those old, old places in England and France? This is new compared t

of future generations of his blood growing up in," Stubby murmured, "and come home cr

ike it much,"

e the distasteful experience Stubby mentioned a

et the Infant yet-don't know anything about it. I tell you it put the breeze up when I got able to go into our affairs and learned how things stood. I thought I'd get mended and then be a giddy idler for a year or so. But it's up to me. I have to get into the collar. Otherwise I should have sta

ly sore at seeing anybody else hang up his hat and call it home. So behold in me an active cannery operator when the sea

ae n

ollers fish

to a hundred, from te

nery gets practica

nodde

some of those blueback salmon," Abbott

w that the Abbotts owned the Crow Harbor cannery, in the mouth of Howe Sound just ou

o buck the Packe

"You do know something about th

tted. "I grew up in the Gulf, re

nd bank advances on the season's pack. But Abbott, senior, it seems, wasn't a profiteer. He took the war to heart. His patriotism didn't consist of buying war bonds in fifty-thousand dollar lots and calling it square. He got in wrong by trying to keep the price of fresh fish down locally, and the last year he lived the Crow Harbor cannery only made a normal profit. Last season the plant operated at a loss in the ha

pay. I must have salmon to do so. I have to go outside my immediate territory to get them. If I could get enough blueback to keep full steam from the opening of the sockeye season until the coho run comes-there's nothing

MacRae put

re am I going to find men to whom I can turn over a six-thousand-dollar boat and a couple of thousa

em percentage on what

at," Stubby said be

round Squitty anyway for the fresh-fish market in town if I can make a sure-delivery connection. I know those grounds. I know

ght we sat watching for the bombers to come back from a raid and you first told me about that place of yours on Squitty Is

e. My father died of the flu the night I got home. The ranch, or all of it but the old log house I was born in and a patch of ground the size of a town lot, has gone the way you mentio

ur place?" Ab

w did yo

d of Squitty. In fact Nelly was up there last summer for a week or so

ooking in that direction by chance, because the window happened to face that way, to where the

he said at last. "N

ill too. Now about this fish business. If you think you can get them, I'll certainly go you on that twenty per cent. propositi

contract to that e

ether at the office to-mor

bargain, grinning at each oth

le boat?" Stubby a

find that I can charter one cheaper than I can build-until

pensive boats that never carried their weight in salmon. I'm going to sell two fifty-footers and a

and to finance the buying. I'm going to start as soon as the blueb

y gri

organized it to give Vancouver people cheap fish, but somehow it didn't work as he intended. It's

visibly twisted and scarred between wrist and elbow, above his head, "let's g

Stubby halted and laid

"And I don't go much on Norman. But I'll say Betty

Stubby Abbott had merely put into words an impression to