"Why, that's Jack MacRae," Nelly Abbott exclaimed. "Hoo-hoo, Johnny!"
She waved both hands for good measure. MacRae, bareheaded, sleeves rolled above his elbows, standing in hip boots of rubber on a deck wet and slippery with water and fish slime, amid piles of gleaming salmon, recognized her easily enough. He waved 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 words between them. The man nodded, pushed off his boat. Instantly another edged into the vacant place. Salmon began to fall on the deck, heaved up on a picaroon. At the other end of the fish hold another of the Ferrara boys was tallying in fish.
"Old crab," Nelly Abbott murmured. "He doesn't even look at us."
"He's counting salmon, silly," Betty explained. "How can he?"
There was no particular inflection in her voice. Nevertheless Horace Gower shot a sidelong glance at his daughter. She also waved a hand pleasantly to Jack MacRae, who had faced about now.
"Why don't you say you're glad to see us, old dear?" Nelly Abbott suggested bluntly, and smiling so that all her white teeth gleamed and her eyes twinkled mischievously.
"Tickled to death," MacRae called back. He went through the pantomime of shaking hands with himself. His lips parted in a smile. "But I'm the busiest thing afloat right now. See you later."
"Nerve," Horace Gower muttered under his breath.
"Not if we see you first," Nelly Abbott retorted.
"It's not likely you will," MacRae laughed.