n market with his fish. And a wise man," old Manuel
grinned, "don't even figure on monkeying with a buzz saw, sonny."

Not long afterward Jack MacRae got old Manuel in a corner and asked him
what he meant.

"Well," he said, "it's like this. When the bluebacks first run here in
the spring, they're pretty small, too small for canning. But the fresh
fish markets in town take 'em and palm 'em off on the public for salmon
trout. So there's an odd fresh-fish buyer cruises around here and picks
up a few loads of salmon between the end of April and the middle of
June. The Folly Bay cannery opens about then, and the buyers quit. They
go farther up the coast. Partly because there's more fish, mostly
because nobody has ever made any money bucking Gower for salmon on his
own grounds."

"Why?" MacRae asked bluntly.

"Nobody knows _exactly_ why," Manuel replied. "A feller can guess,
though. You know the fisheries department has the British Columbia coast
cut up into areas, and each area is controlled by some packer as a
concession. Well, Gower has the Folly Bay license, and a couple of
purse-seine licenses, and that just about gives him the say-so on all
the waters around Squitty, besides a couple of good bays on the
Vancouver Island side and the same on the mainland. He belongs to the
Packers' Association. They ain't supposed to control the local market.
But the way it works out they really do. At least, when an independent
fish buyer gets to cuttin' in strong on a packer's territory, he
generally finds himself in trouble to sell in Vancouver unless he's got
a cast-iron contract. That is, he can't sell enough to make any money.
Any damn fool can make a living.

"At the top of the island here there's a bunch that has homesteads. They
troll in the summer. They deal at the Folly Bay cannery store. Generally
they're in the hole by spring. Even if they ain't they have to depend on
Folly Bay to market their catch. The cannery's a steady buyer, once it
opens. They can't always depend on the fresh-fish buyer, even if he pays
a few cents more. So once the cannery opens, Gower has a bunch of
trollers ready to deliver salmon, at most any price he cares to name.
And he generally names the lowest price on the coast. He don't have no
competition for a month or so. If there is a little there's ways of
killin' it. So he sets his own price. The trollers can take it or leave
it."

Old Manuel stopped to light his pipe.

"For three seasons," s