kbird_.

"Why, that's Jack MacRae," Nelly Abbott exclaimed. "Hoo-hoo, Johnny!"

She waved both hands for good measure. MacRae, bareheaded, sleeves
rolled above his elbows, standing in hip boots of rubber on a deck wet
and slippery with water and fish slime, amid piles of gleaming salmon,
recognized her easily enough. He waved greeting, but his gaze only for
that one recognizing instant left the salmon that were landing _flop,
flop_ on the _Blackbird's_ deck out of a troller's fish well. He made
out a slip, handed the troller some currency. There was a brief exchange
of words between them. The man nodded, pushed off his boat. Instantly
another edged into the vacant place. Salmon began to fall on the deck,
heaved up on a picaroon. At the other end of the fish hold another of
the Ferrara boys was tallying in fish.

"Old crab," Nelly Abbott murmured. "He doesn't even look at us."

"He's counting salmon, silly," Betty explained. "How can he?"

There was no particular inflection in her voice. Nevertheless Horace
Gower shot a sidelong glance at his daughter. She also waved a hand
pleasantly to Jack MacRae, who had faced about now.

"Why don't you say you're glad to see us, old dear?" Nelly Abbott
suggested bluntly, and smiling so that all her white teeth gleamed and
her eyes twinkled mischievously.

"Tickled to death," MacRae called back. He went through the pantomime of
shaking hands with himself. His lips parted in a smile. "But I'm the
busiest thing afloat right now. See you later."

"Nerve," Horace Gower muttered under his breath.

"Not if we see you first," Nelly Abbott retorted.

"It's not likely you will," MacRae laughed.

He turned back to his work. The fisherman alongside was tall and surly
looking, a leathery-faced individual with a marked scowl. He heaved half
a dozen salmon up on the _Blackbird_. Then he climbed up himself. He
towered over Jack MacRae, and MacRae was not exactly a small man. He
said something, his hands on his hips. MacRae looked at him. He seemed
to be making some reply. And he stepped back from the man. Every other
fisherman turned his face toward the _Blackbird's_ deck. Their
clattering talk stopped short.

The man leaned forward. His hands left his hips, drew into doubled
fists, extended threateningly. He took a step toward MacRae.

And MacRae suddenly lunged forward, as if propelled by some invisible
spring of tremendous force. With incredible swiftness his left hand and
then hi