Poor Man's Rock

by Bertrand W. Sinclair

MacRae went back to Squitty. He could make money with the Blanco on a five-cent commission,—if he could get the salmon within the price limit. So for the next trip or two he contented himself with meeting Gower's price and taking what fish came to him. The Folly Bay mustard pots—three of them great and small—scurried here and there among the trollers, dividing the catch with the Bluebird and the Blanco. There was always a mustard-pot collector in sight. The weather was getting hot. Salmon would not keep in a troller's hold. Part of the old guard stuck tight to MacRae. But there were new men fishing; there were Japanese and illiterate Greeks. It was not to be expected that these men should indulge in far-sighted calculations. But it was a trifle disappointing to see how readily any troller would unload his catch into a mustard pot if neither of MacRae's carriers happened to be at hand.

"Why don't you tie up your boats, Jack?" Vin asked angrily. "You know what would happen. Gower would drop the price with a bang. You'd think these damned idiots would know that. Yet they're feeding him fish by the thousand. They don't appear to care a hoot whether you get any or not. I used to think fishermen had some sense. These fellows can't see an inch past their cursed noses. Pull off your boats for a couple of weeks and let them get their bumps."

"What do you expect?" MacRae said lightly. "It's a scramble, and they are acting precisely as they might be expected to act. I don't blame them. They're under the same necessity as the rest of us—to get it while they can. Did you think they'd sell me fish for sixty if somebody else offered sixty-five? You know how big a nickel looks to a man who earns it as hard as these fellows do."

"No, but they don't seem to care who gets their salmon," Vin growled. "Even when you're paying the same, they act like they'd just as soon Gower got 'em as you. You paid more than Folly Bay all last season. You put all kinds of money in their pockets that you didn't have to."

"And when the pinch comes, they'll remember that," MacRae said. "You watch, Vin. The season is young yet. Gower may beat me at this game, but he won't make any money at it."

MacRae kept abreast of Folly Bay for ten days and emerged from that period with a slight loss, because at the close he was paying more than the salmon were worth at the Terminal warehouse. But when he ran his first load into Crow Harbor Stubby looked over the pile of salmon his men were forking across the floor and drew Jack into his office.

"I've made a contract for delivery of my entire sockeye and blueback pack," he said. "I know precisely where I stand. I can pay up to ninety cents for all July fish. I want all the Squitty bluebacks you can get. Go after them, Jack."

And MacRae went after them. Wherever a Folly Bay collector went either the Blanco or the Bluebird was on his heels. MacRae could cover more ground and carry more cargo, and keep it fresh, than any mustard pot. The Bluebird covered little outlying nooks, the stragglers, the rowboat men in their beach camps. The Blanco kept mostly in touch with the main fleet patrolling the southeastern end of Squitty like a naval flotilla, wheeling and counterwheeling over the grounds where the blueback played. MacRae forced the issue. He raised the price to sixty-five, to seventy, to seventy-five, to eighty, and the boats under the yellow house flag had to pay that to get a fish. MacRae crowded them remorselessly to the limit. So long as he got five cents a fish he could make money. He suspected that it cost Gower a great deal more than five cents a salmon to collect what he got. And he did not get so many now. With the opening of the sockeye season on the Fraser and in the north the Japs abandoned trolling for the gill net. The white trollers returned to their first love because he courted them assiduously. There was always a MacRae carrier in the offing. It cost MacRae his sleep and rest, but he drove himself tirelessly. He could leave Squitty at dusk, unload his salmon at Crow Harbor, and be back at sunrise. He did it many a time, after tallying fish all day. Three hours' sleep was like a gift from the gods. But he kept it up. He had a sense of some approaching crisis.

By the third week in July MacRae was taking three fourths of the bluebacks caught between the Ballenas and Folly Bay. He would lie sometimes within a stone's throw of Gower's cannery, loading salmon.