"Yes, yes, of course. But what do you know about the girl herself? Who is she? What is her history?" "Now, sir, I'm an awful poor detective," confessed "Fingerless" Fraser. "I've often noticed that about myself. If I was the kind that goes snooping around into other people's business, listening to all the gossip I'm told, I'd make a good witness. But I ain't. No, sir! I'm a rotten witness." Despite this indirect rebuke, Boyd might have continued his questioning had not George Balt's heavy step sounded outside. A moment later the big fellow entered. "What did you find at the traps?" asked Emerson, eagerly. "Nothing." George spoke shortly. "The fish struck in this morning, but our trap is corked." He wrenched off his rubber boots and flung them savagely under a bench. "What luck with the boats?" "Not much. Marsh's men are trying to surround our gill-netters, and we ain't got enough boats to protect ourselves." He looked up meaningly from under his heavy brows, and inquired: "How much longer are we going to stand for this?" "What do you mean? I've got men out hunting for new hands." "You know what I mean," the giant rumbled, his red eyes flaming. "You and I can get Willis Marsh." Emerson shot a quick glance at Fraser, who was staring fixedly at Big George. "He's got us right enough, and it's bound to come to a killing some day, so the sooner the better," the fisherman ran on. "We can get him to-night if you say so. Are you in on it?" Boyd faced the window slowly, while the others followed him with anxious eyes. Inside the room a death-like silence settled. In the distance they heard the sound of the canning machinery, a sound that was now a mockery. To Balt this last disaster was the culmination of a persecution so pitiless and unflagging that its very memory filled his simple mind with the fury of a goaded animal. To his companion it meant, almost certainly, the loss of Mildred Wayland--the girl who stood for his pride in himself and all that he held most desirable. He thought bitterly of all the suffering and hardship, the hunger of body and soul, that he had endured for her sake. Again he saw his hopes crumbling and his dreams about to fade; once more he felt his foothold giving way beneath him, as it had done so often in the past, and he was filled with sullen hate. Something told him that he would never have the heart to try again, and the thought left him cold with rage.