Poor Man's Rock

by Bertrand W. Sinclair

"I expect to deliver sixty thousand bluebacks to Crow Harbor in July," MacRae said.

Stubby stared at him. His eyes twinkled.

"If you can do that in July, and in August too," he said, "I'll give you the Bluebird."

"No," MacRae smiled. "I'll buy her."

"Where will Folly Bay get off if you take that many fish away?" Stubby reflected.

"Don't know. And I don't care a hoot." MacRae shrugged his shoulders. "I'm fairly sure I can do it. You don't care?"

"Do I? I'll shout to the world I don't," Stubby replied. "It's self-preservation with me. Let old Horace look out for himself. He had his fingers in the pie while we were in France. I don't have to have four hundred per cent profit to do business. Get the fish if you can, Jack, old boy, even if it busts old Horace. Which it won't—and, as I told you, lack of them may bust me."

"By the way," Stubby said as MacRae rose to go, "don't you ever have an hour to spare in town? You haven't been out at the house for six weeks."

MacRae held out his hands. They were red and cut and scarred, roughened, and sore from salt water and ice-handling and fish slime.