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"How's that?" questioned George. "Mr. Clyde offers to put ten thousand dollars into the deal if he can go to Kalvik with us and help run the cannery," explained Emerson. George looked over the clubman carefully from his curly crown to his slender, high-heeled shoes, then smiled broadly. "It's up to Mr. Emerson. I'm willing if he is."
The trail to Kalvik leads down from the northward mountains over the tundra which flanks the tide flats, then creeps out upon the salt ice of the river and across to the village.
"If it is, we'll be in Kalvik the first week in May." "Is your sense of smell sharp enough to tell what's happening up there?" "Sure." "Suppose it's a backward season?" "Then we'll lay in the ice alongside the Company boats till she breaks. That may be in June." "I would like to get in early, and have the buildings started before Marsh arrives. There's no telling what he may try."
"I don't reckon you ever seen a herd of Kalvik fishermen out of a job, did you? Well, there's just two things they know, fishing and fighting, and this ain't the fishing season. When they hit Seattle, the police force goes up into the residence section and stufts cotton in its ears, because the only thing that is strong enough to stand between a uniform and a fisherman is a hill."
The lookout pointed a path out of this, into which they steamed, coming at length to clear water, with the low shores of the mainland twenty miles away. At sundown they anchored in the wide estuary of the Kalvik River, the noisy rumble of their chains breaking the silence that for months had lain like a smother upon the port.
"If Marsh was instructed to crush the independents, why has he centred all his efforts on me alone? Why has he spent this summer in Kalvik and not among the other stations to the south?" "That is our business. Different methods are required in different localities." "Then you have no criticism to make you uphold him?" Boyd's indignation was getting beyond control. "None whatever.
Kalvik, to be sure, is not much of a place, being hidden away from the main-travelled routes to the interior and wholly unknown except to those interested in the fisheries. A Greek church, a Russian school with a cassocked priest presiding, and, about a hundred houses, beside the cannery buildings, make up the village.
Ever since those fishermen had walked out on the evening before, he had clung to the feeble hope that once the run began in earnest, George's trap would fill and save the situation; but now that the salmon had struck in and the trap was useless, his discouragement was complete; for there were no idle men in Kalvik, and there was no way of getting help.
First, however, tell me why you came out at this season." "I have a big mining deal on with Mr. Hilliard. He sent for me, and I came. Oh, I hardly know where to begin! But you remember when you were in Kalvik I told you that I had several men out prospecting?" "Yes." "Well, last summer, long before you came through, one of them located a ledge of copper." "You never told me."
"Very well; he's no good, anyhow; he's better out of the way." He hurried through the building, now silent and half deserted, gathering a crew; then, leaving only the Orientals and the watchman to guard the plant, he loaded his men into the boats and set out. All that afternoon and on through the long, murky hours of the night the battle raged on the lower reaches of the Kalvik.
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