Pagina 210 di 416

There were two things for Code to do. One was to sail north into

Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, set seines, and catch the herring

that were then schooling. The other was to run sixty miles or so

northeast to St. Pierre, Miquelon, and buy bait.

Under ordinary circumstances he would not have hesitated. It

would have been Placentia Bay without question. But his situation

was now decidedly out of the ordinary. He was in a hurry to fill

his hold with cod before the other men out of Freekirk Head;

first, for the larger prices he would get; and secondly, because

he yearned to come to grapples with Nat Burns.

To seine for herring would lose him upward of a week; to buy it

would take less than three days, including the round trip to St.

Pierre.

But the money?