e clams in a bucket," Gower said at last. "Let's roast
some. You get plates and forks and salt and pepper and butter, Bet,
while I put the clams on the fire."

Betty went away to the house. Gower raked a flat rock, white-hot, out to
the edge of the coals and put fat quahaugs on it to roast. Then he sat
back and looked at MacRae.

"I wonder if you realize how lucky you are?" he said.

"I think I do," MacRae answered. "You don't seem much surprised."

Gower smiled.

"Well, no. I can't say I am. That first night you came to the cottage to
ask for the _Arrow_ I got a good look at you, and you struck me as a
fine, clean sort of boy, and I said to myself, 'Old Donald has never
told him anything and he has no grudge against me, and wouldn't it be a
sort of compensation if those two should fall naturally and simply in
love with each other?' Yes, it may seem sentimental, but that idea
occurred to me. Of course, it was just an idea. Betty would marry
whoever she wanted to marry. I knew that. Nothing but her own judgment
would influence her in a matter of that sort. I know. I've watched her
grow up. Maybe it's a good quality or maybe it's a bad one, but she has
always had a bull-dog sort of persistence about anything that strikes
her as really important.

"And of course I had no way of knowing whether she would take a fancy to
you or you to her. So I just watched. And maybe I boosted the game a
little, because I'm a pretty wise old fish in my own way. I took a few
whacks at you, now and then, and she flew the storm signals without
knowing it."

Gower smiled reminiscently, stroking his chin with his hand.

"I had to fight you, after a fashion, to find out what sort of stuff you
were, for my own satisfaction," he continued. "I saw that you had your
Scotch up and were after my scalp, and I knew it couldn't be anything
but that old mess. That was natural. But I thought I could square that
if I could ever get close enough to you. Only I couldn't manage that
naturally. And this scramble for the salmon got me in deep before I
realized where I was. I used to feel sorry for you and Betty. I could
see it coming. You both talk with your eyes. I have seen you both when
you didn't know I was near.

"So when I saw that you would fight me till you broke us both, and also
that if I kept on I would not only be broke but so deep in the hole that
I could never get out, I shut the damned cannery up and let everything
slide. I knew as soon