The days that followed the return of the victorious cannery fleet from El Diablo were filled with sunshine for Kenneth Gregory. The effect of Mascola's defeat was far-reaching, and, magnified by Hawkins' publicity, gave to the Legonia Fish Cannery a place of prominence in the public eye.

Taking immediate advantage of the growing popular interest, Winfield & Camby entered into an extensive advertising campaign on behalf of Gregory's product. The brands of the local firm were flaunted on the bill-boards of a dozen western agencies. Whole states were placarded. Newspapers featured the cooperative enterprise of the service men and commented upon it in glowing terms. A current-news company took several hundred feet of film illustrative of the industry and the signal victory achieved by the Americans over the alien fishermen.

Basking in the reflected lime-light, the Service Market caught on like "wild-fire" and taxed the fishermen to their utmost to supply the ever-increasing demand for the fresh product.

Gregory's bank balance began to mount. The financial sky was unclouded. Success loomed bright upon the horizon.

In the hey-day of prosperity, no one noticed the faint clouds which crept upward from the sky-line. Storm-signals fluttered feebly and were passed by unheeded. Then Mr. Dupont, of Winfield & Camby, sounded the warning.

"You're not getting enough fish," he exclaimed on one of his periodical visits to Legonia. "I'm building up a demand for your product which is fast becoming national. The way things are going now, you will not be able to supply it. Then I'll be out of pocket for my advertising. I'm cutting into your surplus every day. In two weeks you'll be down to bed-rock. What are you going to do about it?"

As Gregory considered the question, Mr. Dupont answered for him: "You've got to have more boats. If you haven't the money to tie up in them right now, I'll back you and take a mortgage on your plant. I'm willing to stick by you and back you to the limit. But you've got to furnish the goods."

Gregory made up his mind quickly. Dupont was right. Things were coming his way with a rush. What was the use of losing all he had gained by pursuing a policy of playing safe and "shooting nickels"? Men who made fortunes on the sea had to take chances. It grayed their hair and seamed their faces with premature lines. But that was part of the game,—the toll which the sea demanded.

"All right," he said. "Let's get down to business. I'll go back to the city with you and we'll fix things up. I know of some boats I can lease while Barrows is building the others. Let's go."

From the arrival of the new craft which went to make up the greater cannery fleet, misfortune stalked grimly in its wake. Fishing was universally poor. The boats were forced to cruise wide areas in order to supply fish enough for the cannery and Service Market. Areas which placed them beyond reach of the radio and gave Mascola his chance. The Italian struck without warning. Angered by the loss of his prestige, strengthened by his augmented fleet, he began to hector the extreme outposts beyond reach of the wireless.

Then ensued a long period of stormy weather. Owing to new and inexperienced crews and the increasing interference of Mascola's men, a number of Gregory's vessels were wrecked on the island shores and salvaged with great difficulty and expense. With the extended radius of his operations, overhead expenses mounted perceptibly, cutting down profits and adding to the multiplying worries of the young cannery-owner in countless ways.

At the close of one particularly trying day he sat alone in the cannery office and stared moodily at a wireless despatch which lay on the desk before him. It came from Diablo and reported the arrival of a portion of his fleet off the Hell-Hole.

The message was phrased in the most optimistic terms. Fish appeared to be plentiful. The weather was fine, the sea smooth. There was no sign of interference from any quarter.

Yet the worried lines which creased Gregory's forehead deepened. It had been that way often of late at devil island. No matter how clear the sky appeared, the shadow of El Diablo bulked dark and sinister across the sunlit horizon. Something would happen out there to-night. He felt sure of it. He should have gone with the fleet. But how could he? He was far down the coast with the new boats when they left.

Diablo, he realized sharply, was getting on his nerves. Were the obstacles which he had encountered about the island due to something more than a mere defense of good fishing grounds? It was not the first time he had asked himself the question. There was something wrong at El Diablo. He could not shake off the feeling. As he sat down to wait for the evil tidings he felt sure would come, he took up an unopened letter from Hawkins which had been on his desk two days. A part of the letter caused him to read it the second time.

For some time Gregory stared at Hawkins' letter. The information gleaned from its contents shed a new light upon El Diablo. Bandrist and Rock were in cahoots. Both were interested in keeping him away from Diablo. Something was wrong on the island. It was Mascola's job to keep strange craft from going there to find out. With the words strange craft, his mind flashed to a new tangent. To his half-closed eyes came a vision of a long gray hull, running dark, gliding through the water toward them like a destructive shadow. Bronson had said it looked like the Gray Ghost. What was the Gray Ghost? Where did she clear from? And what was her purpose in putting in in the dark to Hell-Hole?

The questions multiplied with the smoke-wreaths and in the blue haze which enveloped him, Kenneth Gregory beheld his vague and intangible suspicions gradually crystallizing into three fundamental hypotheses: Something crooked was being pulled off at Diablo. Rock and Bandrist were back of it. The isolation of the island was threatened by the increasing activities of the American fleet in that vicinity. Mascola's opportunity was only a means to an end.

Gregory's frown deepened. What Rock and Bandrist were doing at Diablo concerned him in itself, not at all. In so far as it related to Mascola's interference, however, it was all-important. Mascola was the one man who stood between him and his cherished dreams. If Rock and Bandrist were behind Mascola, as he imagined, would it not be pursuing a "cart before horse" policy to continue his expensive militant opposition to the Italian? Why not fathom the motive which lay behind Mascola's action? If Diablo held a secret, the guarding of which threatened his business existence, why should he not as an American citizen take the initiative and——

His meditations were disturbed by a soft tap on the office door. Dickie Lang entered.

"I knew I'd find you here," she said. "Smoking yourself to death and worrying gray. I've come to take you outside for a while. You'll be sick if you go on like this. Forget for a while and come with me. The boys are having a mussel-bake on the beach and they've sent for you. If you have ever eaten kelp-baked mussels you'll not wait to be urged. The grunion should run to-night too, and I want you to see them."

Gregory drew his fingers through his tousled hair and shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said. "But I can't go. I'm waiting for a radio from Diablo."

"Bosh!" the girl interrupted. "It won't take one of the boys five minutes to bring you the message if it comes while you're gone." She came closer and placed a hand on his arm. "Please come," she said. "Just to please me."

Gregory had no alternative. Leaving word with one of the night men to send him any radio despatch at once, he followed Dickie to the beach, where the service men sat cross-legged about a blazing fire of drift-wood. Gregory sank to the sand beside the dark mound of dampened kelp and watched the operations of the chef as he busied himself in removing the heavy pieces of canvas which covered the sea-grass.

"It's nature's fireless-cooker," explained the girl as she took her place beside him. "You can cook most anything in an oven like that if you know how. It's simple enough too. All you have to do is to scoop out a hole in the sand and line it with rocks to hold in the heat. Then build your fire and let it burn for a couple of hours to get a good bed of coals. Cover them with a thin layer of damp kelp and put in the potatoes. Another layer of sea-weed, then the roasting-ears. After that come the fish, wrapped in paper. Then the mussels, clams or anything else you want. When you get them all in, cover the whole thing with a lot of heavy kelp and batten it down with a big piece of canvas. The whole trick is knowing just when to open the oven. Nothing can burn so it's better to leave it too long than to try to hurry things."

Gregory took the tin-plate, piled high with its smoking delicacies, and leisurely freed a succulent mussel from its shell. As he placed it in his mouth his eyes lit up with genuine pleasure and the anxious lines slowly disappeared from his face.

"What do you think of them?"

He could only gasp his appreciation. Dickie smiled at the rapidly disappearing contents of his plate. He looked like a new man already. Nothing like a mussel-bake in the open air to make people forget their troubles.

About the dying drift-wood fire, the service men drew closer together and began to sing.

As their voices rose above the dull boom of the surf, Gregory's thoughts turned to the words of the song. The trail had been long. How long and how devious, he had never quite before realized. Perhaps it was because he was tired and the firelight made him think. The "land of his dreams" was still far ahead. Blocked from his vision for the time being by an intangible something which lay like a dark shadow across the path.

"Over there. Over there."

He started and looked involuntarily toward the phosphorescent line of breakers. Over there? Once it had meant France. Now it came to him with a new meaning. Beyond the gleaming waves he fancied he could see the jagged shore-line of El Diablo.

Gregory's eyes narrowed. When "it was over, over there," perhaps it would be over everywhere. Then, and only then, would he reach "the land of his dreams." He looked guiltily at Dickie Lang and was glad that she could not read his thoughts concerning the end of the long trail.

"What were you thinking of, just then? I never saw you look like that before."

It was the eternal feminine speaking.

Gregory shook his head. "I never did look like that before," he said. "Because I never thought quite that far. Some day perhaps I'll tell you what I was thinking."

The moon, which had shyly appeared over the low brown hills, grew bolder and mingled its rays with those of the fire in crowding back the shadows. Then a shout came from the water.

"Grunion."

The singing ceased abruptly and the service men scrambled to their feet and raced down the beach.

Dickie made haste to follow.

"Come on," she cried to Gregory. "And I'll show you the sight of your life."

Following the girl to the wet sands, Gregory was amazed at the spectacle. The silver waves were alive with glistening fish. Borne high on the crest of the tumbling breakers, they surged to the beach by thousands and lay quivering like quick-silver, stranded in the sand by the back-wash. With a deafening shout men scrambled to the water's edge and scooped them up in their hands. Dickie rushed to the water and returned with a small fish, somewhat resembling a sardine.

"Grunion," she announced. "They come up at certain seasons of the year to spawn. There are only three places on the coast south of the Golden Gate where they run. For three or four nights now while the tide is high and the moon full they'll be swept up on this beach and left to lay their eggs in the wet sand. If you get closer you can see them standing on their tails. You'll never believe it unless you do see it. You've got to work fast to get them for they hop along the beach only for a second. Then the next breaker takes them out."

Handing him one of the little fish, she continued: "Take him up to the fire and look at him. Against a good light you can see clear though them. If you had a skillet hot on the coals and threw in a handful of grunion you could never have a finer dish. But they won't hardly keep over night. For that reason they are good for nothing, commercially."

She paused abruptly and listened. "I thought I heard some one calling," she said.

Turning about they saw three men standing by the fire.

"Maybe it's some word from the boys," Gregory exclaimed. "Let's go and see."

At the fireside they came upon Hawkins with two strangers, whom he introduced as brothers of his craft. Drawing Gregory aside while Dickie conversed with Slade and Billings, he said:

"Listen, Cap. I want a boat and a man to run it who knows Diablo from the water-line up. I'm on the trail of the biggest kind of a scoop. I can't give you all the dope but I can tell you a few things that will open your eyes."

The two men drew farther into the shadows and conferred in low-pitched voices, broken now and then by Gregory's muttered exclamations. While they talked one of the night men from the cannery hurried on to the scene.

"Message for Mr. Gregory," he called.

Gregory took the message and drew nearer the coals. In the red glow of the fire, he read:

From: Launch Snipe
At Sea. Five miles off Hell-Hole.

Jones.

Dickie's eyes shone angrily at the message. "Damn them!" she cried. "They got my Curlew." Grasping Gregory's arm, she exclaimed: "There's a bunch of the fleet off San Anselmo on the mainland side. There's some more a few miles down the coast from Cavalan. They can all make Diablo in two hours if you wire them right away. We can go over in the Richard and round them up and smash Mascola's whole fleet. What if they have shotguns? We have rifles. Come on. What are you waiting for?"

Dickie Lang was breathless. Her cheeks glowed. Her eyes were shining.

Gregory shook his head slowly and looked at Hawkins.

"The Gray Ghost ran the Curlew down about an hour ago off the Hell-Hole Isthmus," he said.

The two strangers drew closer and listened intently to the news while Dickie chafed at Gregory's failure to get under way.

"That means we've got to be off," exclaimed one of the men. "How about going over in that speed-boat of yours?"

Gregory nodded. "That's what I was figuring on," he said. "I'm going to send a radio to all my boats within a thirty-mile radius of the island to reinforce the fleet and mix it with Mascola off the Hell-Hole Isthmus on the north side. While they're busy on that side, it will leave us a clear field on the other."

Dickie's eyes opened wide at his words. As they moved away together in the direction of the cannery, she cried: "I don't understand at all. Aren't you going to help the boys out?"

Gregory shook his head and the grim lines tightened about his mouth.

"No," he answered. "Not this time. That is what Rock, Bandrist and Mascola think I am going to do. But I'm going to fool them. There's something back of all this that we can only guess at now. Diablo has a secret our fathers died to learn. I'm sure of it now. To-night I'm going to find out what it is."