"But I don't understand. These are Marsh's men."
"To be sure, but I was good to them when they were hungry last winter, and I prevailed upon them to come. They aren't very good fishermen; they're awfully lazy, and they won't work half as hard as white men, but it's the best I could do." She laughed gladly, more than repaid by the look in her companion's face. "Now, get me some lunch. I'm fairly starved."
Big George, when he had fully grasped the situation, became the boss fisherman on the instant; before the others had reached the cook-house he was busied in laying out his crews and distributing his gear. The impossible had happened; victory was in sight; the fish were running—he cared to know no more.
That night the floors of the fish-dock groaned beneath a weight of silver-sided salmon piled waist-high to a tall man. All through the cool, dim-lit hours the ranks of Chinese butchers hacked and slit and slashed with swift, sure, tireless strokes, while the great building echoed hollowly to the clank of machines and the hissing sighs of the soldering-furnaces.
CHAPTER XXIII
IN WHICH MORE PLANS ARE LAID
It seemed to Boyd that he had never felt such elation as during the days that followed. He trod upon air, his head was in the clouds. He joked with his men, inspiring them with his own good-humor and untiring energy. He was never idle save during the odd hours that he snatched for sleep. He covered the plant from top to bottom, and no wheel stopped turning, no mechanical device gave way, without his instant attention. So urgent was he that George Balt became desperate; for the Indians were not like white men, and proved a sad trial to the big fellow, who was accustomed to drive his crews with the cruelty of a convict foreman. Despite his utmost endeavors, he could not keep the plant running to capacity, and in his zeal he took the blame wholly upon himself.
While the daily output was disappointing, Emerson drew consolation from the prospect that his pack would be large enough at least to avert utter ruin, and he argued that once he had won through this first season no power that Marsh could bring to bear would serve to crush him. He saw a moderate success ahead, if not the overwhelming victory upon which he had counted.
Up at the Trust's headquarters Willis Marsh was in a fine fury. As far as possible, his subordinates avoided him. His superintendents, summoned from their work, emerged from the red-painted office on the hill with dampened brows and frightened glances over their shoulders. Many of them held their places through services that did not show upon the Company's books, but now they shook their heads and swore that some things were beyond them.
Except for one step on Emerson's part, Marsh would have rested secure, and let time work out his enemy's downfall; but Boyd's precaution in contracting to sell his output in advance threatened to defeat him. Otherwise, Marsh would simply have cut down his rival's catch to the lowest point, and then broken the market in the fall. With the Trust's tremendous resources back of him, he could have afforded to hammer down the price of fish to a point where Emerson would either have been ruined or forced to carry his pack for a year, and in this course he would have been upheld by Wayne Wayland. But as matters stood, such tactics could only result in a serious loss to the brokers who had agreed to take Boyd's catch, and to the Trust itself. It was therefore necessary to work the young man's undoing here and now.