"We haven't been getting along any too well with Mascola's outfit lately," he explained as they walked along. "I'll stop at Lang's wharf first. Maybe some of the boats are back."
Turning on to a small wharf they walked in silence over the loose boards down the lane of ill-smelling fish-boxes. At the end of the dock a narrow gangway led downward to a small float which rocked lazily in the capping swells thrown up by a passing fishing-boat. Close by, another wharf jutted out into the bay. Upon it were a number of swarthy fishermen, piling nets. Blair stopped abruptly at the head of the gang
way, his eyes searching the water. The fishing-boat was swinging up into the tide and edging closer.
"Is that one of the Lang boats?" he heard Gregory ask.
A paroxysm of coughing prevented Blair's immediate reply. The young officer looked eagerly at the approaching craft, upon the bow of which a dark-skinned man leaned carelessly against the wire-stays. He noticed that the man was tall and straight. Upon his head a gaudy red cap rested with a rakish air. His eyes were upon the Lang dock as he stood with folded arms and waited for the boat to nose up to the near-by wharf.
Gregory admitted to himself that there was something masterful about the red-capped stranger, at the same time, repellent. The crowd of aliens moreover, he noticed, fell away respectfully. The newcomer was evidently a personage in the community.
Gregory, watching him as he stepped from the launch, instinctively disliked him.
"That's Mascola."
Blair bit the words savagely.
Gregory surveyed the newcomer with interest.