and shark that
hung always about the schools to prey were herding them to some given
point. Very shortly after they could be taken in the shadow of the
Ballenas light the schools swarmed about the Cove end of Squitty Island,
between the Elephant on Sangster and Poor Man's Rock. For days on end
the sea was alive with them. In the gray of dawn and the reddened dusk
they played upon the surface of the sea as far as the eye reached. And
always at such times they struck savagely at a glittering spoon hook.
Beyond Squitty they vanished. Fifty and sixty salmon daily to a boat off
the Squitty headlands dwindled to fifteen and twenty at the Folly Bay
end. Those restless trollers who crossed the Gulf to Hornby and Yellow
Rock Light got little for their pains. Between Folly Bay and the
swirling tide races off the desolate head of Cape Mudge the blueback
disappeared. But at Squitty the runs held constant. There were off days,
but the fish were always there. The trollers hung at the south end,
sheltering at night in the Cove, huddled rubstrake to rubstrake and bow
to stern, so many were they in that little space, on days when the
southeaster made the cliffs shudder under the shock of breaking seas. If
fishing slackened for a day or two they did not scatter as in other
days. There would be another run hard on the heels of the last. And
there was.

MacRae ran the _Blanco_ into Squitty Cove one afternoon and made fast
alongside the _Bluebird_ which lay to fore and aft moorings in the
narrow gut of the Cove. The Gulf outside was speckled with trollers, but
there were many at anchor, resting, or cooking food.

One of the mustard pots was there, a squat fifty-foot carrier painted a
gaudy yellow--the Folly Bay house color--flying a yellow flag with a
black C in the center. She was loading fish from two trollers, one lying
on each side. One or two more were waiting, edging up.

"He came in yesterday afternoon after you left," Vin Ferrara told Jack.
"And he offered forty-five cents. Some of them took it. To-day he's
paying fifty and hinting more if he has to."

MacRae laughed.

"We'll match Gower's price till he boosts us out of the bidding," he
said. "And he won't make much on his pack if he does that."

"Say, Folly Bay," Jack called across to the mustard-pot carrier, "what
are you paying for bluebacks?"

The skipper took his eye off the tallyman counting in fish.

"Fifty cents," he answered in a voice that echoed up and down the C