"Nothing doing, Jack. Go home and go to bed. I know all about your wife's sick aunt. No time to listen now. If you're sober by afternoon you can go out with the boys drifting."
The fisherman started to expostulate but she had already left him. Mumbling that she didn't know what sickness was, he stumbled obediently away in the direction of the shore.
"He's been drunk since Tuesday," she announced as she rejoined Gregory. "Too bad, too. Best man I've got in shallow water. You ought to see him handle a dory in the surf."
Again the light picked out a newcomer who stood hesitating a few feet away. "What's the trouble, Pete? Why aren't you on the job?"
"I've got to have more money." The words were spoken boldly and in a tone which drew the attention of all about. A number of fishermen shuffled nearer the speaker and ranged themselves beyond the circle of light within easy hearing distance.
"You want more money," Dickie Lang repeated slowly. "Well about the only reason I could ever
think of for paying you any more would be for your nerve in asking for it. Why, I've lost more through your carelessness since you've been on the job than I could make on you in six months. The first shot out of the box you let a piece of barracuda-webbing go adrift and Mascola's gang picked it up right before your eyes and you never cheeped. Then you put one of my motors on the blink because you were too lazy to watch the oil-feed. Where do you think I get off? How long could I run this outfit if all my men were like you? Take a brace and come alive, Pete. That's the way to get more money out of me or any one else. The harder you hit the ball the more you'll get. I don't want to hog it all. The boys will tell you I shoot square."
The fisherman slunk sullenly away and joined his companions. Dickie Lang turned again to Gregory.
"That's one of the things I'm up against," she exclaimed in a low voice. "That fellow is a regular agitator. Talking is his long suit. Why, he didn't even know how to throw a bowline when he hit in here, flat broke and down on his uppers. I've taught him all he knows. And now he's trying to start something. If men weren't so scarce I'd can him in a minute."
Gregory watched the fleet embark, marveling at the manner in which the burly fishermen took orders from a mere slip of a girl. How it must go against their grain, he thought, to be bossed about by a woman.