Poor Man's Rock

by Bertrand W. Sinclair

"Haughty spirit that goes before destruction, as Dolly used to say," he rambled on. "Some come-down for him. He must be broke flat as a flounder."

"He sold you his salmon?"

"Sure. Nobody else to sell 'em to, is there? Said he was trying his hand. Seemed good-natured about it. Kinda pleased, in fact, because he had one more than Doug Sproul. He started joshin' Doug. You know what a crab old Doug is. He got crusty as blazes. Old Gower just grinned at him and rowed off."

MacRae made no comment, and their talk turned into other channels until Vin hauled his hook and bore away. MacRae saw to dropping the Blanco's anchor. He would lie there till dusk. Then he sat in the shade again, looking up at the Gower cottage.

Gower was finished as an exploiter. There was no question about that. When a man as big as he went down the crash set tongues wagging. All the current talk reached MacRae through Stubby. That price-war had been Gower's last kick, an incomprehensible, ill-judged effort to reëstablish his hold on the Squitty grounds, so it was said.

"He never was such a terribly big toad in the cannery puddle," Stubby recited, "and I guess he has made his last splash. They always cut a wide swath in town, and that sort of thing can sure eat up coin. I'm kind of sorry for Betty. Still, she'll probably marry somebody with money. I know two or three fellows who would be tickled to death to get her."

"Why don't you go to the rescue?" MacRae had suggested, with an irony that went wide of the mark.

Stubby looked reflectively at his crippled arm.

"Last summer I would have," he said. "But she couldn't see me with a microscope. And I've found a girl who seems to think a winged duck is worth while."

"You'll be able to get hold of that ranch of yours again, probably," Stubby had also said. "The chances are old H.A. will raise what cash he can and try to make a fresh start. It seems there has been friction in the family, and his wife refused to come through with any of her available cash. Seems kind of a complicated hole he got into. He's cleaned, anyway. Robbin-Steele got all his cannery tenders and took over several thousand cases of salmon. I hear he still has a few debts to be settled when the cannery is sold. Why don't you figure a way of getting hold of that cannery, Jack?"