A strike at this of all times! And Pete Carlin at the bottom of it! With her nerves frayed raw by two nights of sleepless vigil and the memory of the Curlew's disabled motor rankling within her, Dickie Lang brushed by a group of men and confronted a bullet-headed man in a loose gray sweater.
"Carlin," she said clearly in a voice which all could hear, "you're fired. You're a crook. If you'd work the clock around I wouldn't have you on the job."
Turning to the fishermen she rapidly related the incident of the finding of the emery-dust in the Curlew's motor.
"It's a lie," Carlin interrupted, "I don't——"
"It's the truth, Pete Carlin, and you know it."
Dickie moved closer to Carlin and her eyes met his. "You can't look me in the eye and deny it," she challenged. As the man said nothing, she flashed: "Get off my dock while you're still able to walk. If I was a man I'd knock you down."
The man grinned but did not move.
"But you ain't," he retorted. "I reckon I ain't
goin' to have no fool girl tell me where to head in at. I reckon I——"
A heavy hand fell on his shoulder and his sentence remained unfinished. Gregory's eyes were snapping close to Carlin's.