"This is where speed counts," she exclaimed. "If Mascola tumbles on to Big Jack he'll have his gang around the Albatross before we can get within hailing distance of our nearest boat."
Gregory watched the rapidly disappearing speed-boat anxiously. It was on his tongue to tell the girl of the launch Joe Barrows was building for him at Port Angeles, a craft which the boat-builder guaranteed in the contract would beat the boat he had built for the Italian.
"Keeping in close touch is everything in this business," Dickie observed. "Fish come in bunches. The ocean's spotted like a checker-board. You may have one boat loading up and another right around the next point doing nothing. That's where Mascola wins out," she exclaimed. "He scouts round and tips his fleet off if you've anything good. Then they're down on you like a flock of gulls."
Before they caught up with the stragglers of the cannery fleet they sighted the alien fishing-boats coming in their direction. Dickie's brow was overcast.
"Just what I was afraid of," she cried. "He's tipped them off. We're going to lose a lot to-day on
account of not being able to keep closer together and being shy on a fast boat. You might as well get the idea of filling that albacore order out of your head right now."
As they overhauled the cannery boats and headed them back to the seal rocks, Gregory considered the girl's words about keeping in closer touch. If he was going to beat Mascola, he'd have to get there first. The speed-launch which Barrows was building for him would serve as a signal boat, but even that would not serve to keep the other boats in constant touch with one another. Before they reached the last of the available boats they met Mascola coming back. While the girl stormed at their helplessness to cope with the situation, Gregory spoke in monosyllables and wrestled with his problem.
He considered the methods of communication employed by the army in connecting the various units. One by one he discarded them. The semaphore would serve only for short distances and then only when the boats were within sight of each other. The same argument would apply against the wig-wag. The heliograph would be useless in stormy weather or in fog. A fast launch would help out, but even that would not completely solve the difficulty. How did boats keep in touch with one another? The answer came at once. Why hadn't he thought of it before?
When they came in sight of the seal rocks they saw the masts of the two fleets clustered thickly about the Albatross.