"Put a fair price on the Birds, and I'll buy 'em both," MacRae suggested. "You had them up for sale, anyway. That will let you out, so far as my equipment is concerned."
"Five thousand each," Stubby said promptly.
"They're good value at that. And I can use ten thousand dollars to advantage, right now."
"I'll give you a check. I want the registry transferred to me at once," MacRae continued. "That done, you can cease worrying over me, Stub. You've been square, and I've made money on the deal. You would be foolish to fight unless you have a fighting chance. Oh, another thing. Will the Terminal shut off on me, too?"
"No," Stubby declared. "The Terminal is one of the weapons I intend ultimately to use as a club on the heads of this group of gentlemen who want to make a close corporation of the salmon industry on the British Columbia coast. If I get by this season, I shall be in shape to show them something. They will not bother about the Terminal, because the Terminal is small. All the salmon they could take from you wouldn't hurt Gower. What they want is to enable Gower to get up his usual fall pack. It has taken him this long to get things shaped so he could call me off. He can't reach a local concern like the Terminal. No, the Terminal will continue to buy salmon from you, Jack. But you know they haven't the facilities to handle a fourth of the salmon you have been running lately."
"I'll see they get whatever they can use," MacRae declared. "And if it is any satisfaction to you personally, Stub, I can assure you that I shall continue to do business as usual."
Stubby looked curious.
"You've got something up your sleeve?"
"Yes," MacRae admitted. "No stuffed club, either. It's loaded. You wait and keep your ears open."
MacRae's face twisted into a mirthless smile. His eyes glowed with the fire that always blazed up in them when he thought too intensely of Horace Gower and the past, or of Gower's various shifts to defeat him in what he undertook. He had anticipated this move. He was angrily determined that Gower should not get one more salmon, or buy what he got a cent cheaper, by this latest strategy.