Gregory looked at the girl with more respect. Apparently she knew something of his business as well as her own. Doubtless her association with her father had brought her into close touch with the cannery. As she went on, Dickie Lang divulged the source of her information.
"Jack and I have talked you over a lot," she said soberly. "We are both anxious to see you get going."
While she talked on concerning the re-opening of the cannery, Gregory wondered to what extent her opinion of McCoy's ability was based by personal prejudice. Of course it was nothing to him what Dickie Lang thought of McCoy or of himself either, for that matter. He decided to look McCoy up at once.
"Then you have to get your labor," she went on. "And that isn't as easy, I have found, as it seems. You see Mascola has the bulge on the labor situation around here. He has the riff-raff of the world on his pay-roll. They speak in a dozen different languages. Everything almost—but English. They are practically all aliens and there is nothing they won't do to keep a decent man out. Blair had hard work to get a crew, I know, and harder work to keep it. He was always hiring and firing. Things would go all right for a while. Then there would come a row with Mascola's outfit and a lot of the boys would get disgusted and leave."
Gregory interrupted:
"I understand from my father's attorney, that one of the biggest things he had to contend with was the matter of getting fish."
"I'm coming to that in a minute. Let's finish up the labor question while we're on it. You've got to get a certain number of skilled men who can handle the machines. With a few others who have worked in
a fish cannery you can go ahead, for the biggest percentage of your labor is unskilled anyway and has to be broken in. Men like that are the hardest to get," she concluded, "they are mostly tramps. Here to-day and gone to-morrow. You can't depend on them. If you can get a bunch to stick, you're mighty lucky."
She paused and moved her chair nearer. Then she broached the important subject.