Poor Man's Rock

ed R

was getting more fastidious as he grew older, and he no longer relished the odors of the cannery. There were other places nearer the cannery than Cradle Bay, if none more sightly, where he could have built a summer house. People wondered why he chose the point that frowned over Poor Man's Rock. Even his own family had questioned his judgment. Particula

asual look around. Then he put the glasses to his eyes and scanned the Gulf with a slow, searching sweep. At first sight it s

lled up off the Gulf, breaking with a precisely spaced boom along the cliffs. For forty-eight hours a southeaster had swept the sea, that rare phenomenon of a summer g

ly between periods in the hollows of the sea. They drew nearer. Gower finished his cigar in leisurely fashion. He focused the glass again. He grunted something unintelligible. They were what he fully expected to behold as soon as the southeaster ceased to whip the Gulf,-the Bluebird and the Blackbird, Jack MacRae's two salmon carri

, a round-faced, florid, middle-aged Billiken. By that time the two Bird boats had come up and parted on the head of Squitty. The Bluebird, captained by Vin Ferrara, hea

lie. He's not afraid of wind or sea or work

it his business to find out. He sat now in his grass chair, a short, compact body of a man, with a heavy-jawed, powerful face frowning in abstraction. Gower looked younger than his fifty-six years. There was little gray in his light-brown hair. His blue eyes were clear and piercing. The thick roundness of his body was not altogether composed of useless tissue. Even considered superficially he looked what he really was, what he had been for

graceful stride peculiar to the short and thick-bodied, down the walk to

bin. He put his head through the companion hatch. Betty Gower and Nelly Abbott we

were ashore,"

ods, so we came out here to look around. Nelly hasn't see

Bay," Gower said.

. "I'd as soon go to the canner

a swell though.

hing she loved it was to ride the dead swell that ran after a storm. They came up out of the cabin to watch the mooring line c

e Arrow passed into the lee of an island group halfway along Squitty she made less time than a fishing boat, and she rolled and twisted uncomfortably. If Horace Gower had a mind to reach Folly Bay before the

he cannery loomed white on shore, with a couple of purse seiners and a tender or two tied at the slips. And four hundred yards

abreast of that bu

vessel to a standstill within

e," Nelly Abbott exclai

d greeting, but his gaze only for that one recognizing instant left the salmon that were landing flop, flop on the Blackbird's deck out of a troller's fish well. He made out a slip, handed the troller some currency. There was a brief exchange of

ott murmured. "He doe

n, silly," Betty exp

Horace Gower shot a sidelong glance at his daughter. She also

ly Abbott suggested bluntly, and smiling so that all her

tomime of shaking hands with himself. His lips parted in a smil

Gower muttered u

ou first," Nelly

ly you will,"

ackbird. Then he climbed up himself. He towered over Jack MacRae, and MacRae was not exactly a small man. He said something, his hands on his hips. MacRae looked at him. H

hips, drew into doubled fists, extended t

ft hand and then his right shot at the man's face. The two blows sounded like two open-handed smacks. But the fisherman sagged, we

aste, but with little care where they fell, for one or two spattered against the fel

ess gracious,

urmured these expletives as much in a spiri

"I never saw two men fight before.

and a hook of iron on its tip. He only used it, however, to shove away the boat containing the man he had so sa

g back thoughtfully, unaware that her father was keenly watchin

Rae last spring, didn't you?" he

er cheeks. She met her father's glan

" she said at last

at he is what you call a nice boy. I'll admit he's good-looking and that he dances well. And he seems to pack a punch up his sleeve. I'd sug

s of temper. Betty flew storm signals from cheek and eye. She looked after her

t the whispered se

elf up to thinking of herself and her father and her father's amazing warning which carried a veiled

rked the trollers slipping in from the groun

a verbatim report of his daughter's reflections for the next five