"It was your idea," he said, "you paid me to carry it out. At first I didn't think much of it. But now I believe it's going to work. The men are tickled to death. I never had a crew that tried so hard to learn or picked it up so quickly. I can handle an average run with them right now and they've only been working broken hours for a week."
Gregory turned quickly to McCoy and said earnestly: "It's a big idea, Mac. It will work. It's got to work. It's getting bigger all the time. And I'll be damned if I'm going to have a girl hang me up by falling down on her job."
He shut his lips tight as he drew a blue-print from his pocket and spread it out on an empty case.
"Now I want to go over these plans for making a bunk-house out of this building. The boys can't get a decent place to stay in the town. The contractor will be here in half an hour. After I've closed with him I'm going down to the Lang dock and see the girl."
Dickie Lang paced the docks in nervous expec
tancy while she checked in her returning fleet and conferred with one of her fishing captains.
"I'll tell you, Tom, we've got to get them. I'm under contract to supply Mr. Gregory with fish and I can't fall down like this. Look here." Shoving a tally-sheet before his eyes, she pointed to the totals. "Not enough there to last him half a day. He's beginning to eat them up. We've got to get more."
"But if they ain't runnin', what you going to do?"
"Go after them," she snapped. "Mascola's getting fish. He's going out to sea for them. He brought in a good haul yesterday from Diablo. That's why I sent the big boats over there with the Petrel scouting ahead."
The fisherman shook his head dubiously.