ad
passed into other hands. When Betty and her father came to Cradle Bay
they came on a cannery tender or a hired launch. MacRae hoped it might
be true that Gower was slipping, that he had helped to start him on this
decline.

Presently the loneliness of the Cove was broken by the return of
Vincent Ferrara. They skidded the _Bluebird_ out on the beach at the
Cove's head and overhauled her inside and out, hull and machinery. That
brought them well into April. The new carrier was complete from truck to
keelson. She had been awaiting only MacRae's pleasure for her maiden
sea-dip. So now, with the _Bluebird_ sleeked with new paint, he went
down for the launching.

There was a little ceremony over that.

"It's bad luck, the very worst sort of luck, to launch a boat without
christening her in the approved manner," Nelly Abbott declared. "I
insist on being sponsor. Do let me, Jack."

So the new sixty-footer had a bottle of wine from the Abbott cellar
broken over her brass-bound stemhead as her bows sliced into the salt
water, and Nelly's clear treble chanted:

"I christen thee _Agua Blanco_."

Vin Ferrara's dark eyes gleamed, for _agua blanco_ means "white water"
in the Spanish tongue.

The Terminal Fish Company's new coolers were yawning for fish when the
first blueback run of commercial size showed off Gray Rock and the
Ballenas. All the Squitty boats went out as soon as the salmon came.
MacRae skippered the new and shining _Blanco_, brave in white paint and
polished brass on her virgin trip. He followed the main fleet, while the
_Bluebird_ scuttled about to pick up stray trollers' catches and to tend
the rowboat men. She would dump a day's gathering on the _Blanco's_
deck, and the two crews would dress salmon till their hands were sore.
But it saved both time and fuel to have that great carrying capacity,
and the freezing plant which automatically chilled the fish. MacRae
could stay on the grounds till he was fully loaded. He could slash
through to Vancouver at nine knots instead of seven. A sea that would
toss the old wrecked _Blackbird_ like a dory and keep her low decks
continually awash let the _Blanco_ pass with only a moderate pitch and
roll.

MacRae worked hard. He found ease in work. When the last salmon was
dressed and stowed below, many times under the glow of electric bulbs
strung along the cargo boom, he would fall into his bunk and sleep
dreamlessly. Decks streaming with blood and offal, plastered wi