"Keep close in, Tom. Our last string's dead ahead, off Peeble Beach. When you get around the point swing on the outside of Coward Rocks and give her all she'll stand."
She walked slowly about the deck with her eyes fixed on the wave-washed shore-line.
"So you see each outfit makes its own laws and it's up to them to enforce them. Our law is to mind our own business and get the fish. The only law we break is Mascola's. He tries to tell us where to fish. He bullies the ones he can and fights the ones he can't in any way that is easiest and safest. He's a thief and a crook and he'd commit murder in a minute if he thought he could get by with it."
The idea lodged in her brain. She leaned closer and exclaimed in a low voice: "And how do we know he doesn't get by with murder the way he does with everything else? There's many a man picked up along the coast as a 'floater' that nobody knows how he drowned."
Daybreak was upon them as they hugged the shore-line and slipped into the protecting shadow of Long Point. Dickie Lang's words sank deep into Gregory's
consciousness. A half-formed question found its way at last to his lips.
"Do you think," he began, but was interrupted by the man at the wheel.
"Can't make the inside channel. Have to go round."
He altered the helm as he spoke. Dickie Lang jumped to his side.
"We've got to run the short-cut, Tom. No use going round. They'd spot us a mile away in this light. If they're laying round my nets I want to surprise them. I'll take the boat."