bar, he saw
the Russian surrounded by a jeering crowd.

"Got a job yet, Boris?" some one called.

"He's workin' for the Lang girl now," put in another.

Boris snarled and, flinging his tormentors away from him, made his way
to the bar, jabbering excitedly in Russian to Pete Ankovitch.

Blagg moved nearer.

"What's he sayin', Pete?" he asked.

Ankovitch laughed.

"He say everybody go to hell," he interpreted. "He say he show Mascola
he ain't 'fraid of no woman."

Blagg strove to focus his mind on the Russian's words. Boris was sore
as a boiled oil, crazy as a coot. And he had it in for the Lang girl for
causing him to get the can. The Russian's reference to Mascola caused
the furrows in Blagg's brow to deepen. Both of them were sore at the
girl. Were they framing up? If they were he'd block the boss's game.
He'd wise her. She'd always shot straight enough with him anyway, and he
was a fool to have ever quit her. If Mascola was baiting the Russian to
pull off some dirty work he'd----

Blagg paused in his tentative plans for outwitting Mascola as his eye
fell on Neilson. There was the man he wanted to see. Swan could swing
the Swedes into quitting the dago. All thought of Boris vanished from
Blagg's mind as he drew Neilson aside and conferred confidentially with
the big Swede in a drunken whisper. When he looked about for the Russian
some time later, Boris was gone.

Blagg drained the contents of his last glass with a wry face, and walked
unsteadily to the door. Colliding with a man on the sidewalk, he
regained his poise by leaning heavily against a sandwich sign-board.

"Hello, Blagg. Seen any of my men inside?"

Blagg shoved back his cap and eyed the speaker with drunken suspicion.
When he recognized the cannery owner, a furtive light crept into his
eyes and he beckoned Gregory closer. Gregory noted the mysterious mien
and promptly credited it to the man's state of intoxication. He was on
the point of hurrying on when Blagg's words stayed him.

"Tell Lang girl t' look out for 'self."

"What do you mean?"

Gregory grasped him by the arm and whirled him about.

"Was in s'loon," Blagg muttered, striving to focus his bleary eyes upon
his auditor. "Damn Russian there, too. Boys's kiddin' him an' Boris tol'
'em he was't 'fraid no woman. Said he'd show 'em."

"Does he live over there?" Gregory asked quickly, pointing toward the
Lang hill.

Blagg shook his head and nodded in the opposite direction.

"Dow