"You see, miss, as I say we got families and the women-folks——"
"Don't blame the women, Joe," interrupted the girl. "If they got half of what the saloons leave they'd have no kick coming. I'll bet they're not back of this. You've been listening to a half-baked fool who couldn't make a living if dollars grew on trees. All Pete Carlin can do is talk. You boys know he isn't a fisherman."
She stepped closer and her voice dropped to a conversational tone. "It just isn't in the business, boys. If I promised to pay those wages I couldn't do it. I'd be broke with the first run of bad luck and you know it as well as I do, if you'd stop to think. The man doesn't live who can pay that around here and get out."
Blagg smiled knowingly at the fishermen.
"You're wrong, miss," he said. "We've already got the offer for a job at them terms."
"Not here?"
He nodded. "Right here in town. We won't have to move nor nothin'." Watching the effect of his words upon the girl, he went on, carried away by the importance of his announcement. "That's why we're puttin' it up to you. You've always shot pretty square with us. But money talks, and we all got to look out for Number One. I reckon none of the boys is honein' to go to work for a furrinor, but we all
knows his money's good as yours and that's what counts."
"You mean you're going to ditch me for Mascola?"
Blagg dropped his eyes to the planks of the wharf before the girl's steady gaze.