OF the fish patrolmen under whom we served at various times, Charley Le
Grant and I were agreed, I think, that Neil Partington was the best. He
was neither dishonest nor cowardly; and while he demanded strict
obedience when we were under his orders, at the same time our relations
were those of easy comradeship, and he permitted us a freedom to which we
were ordinarily unaccustomed, as the present story will show.
Neil’s family lived in Oakland, which is on the Lower Bay, not more than
six miles across the water from San Francisco. One day, while scouting
among the Chinese shrimp-catchers of Point Pedro, he received word that
his wife was very ill; and within the hour the _Reindeer_ was bowling
along for Oakland, with a stiff northwest breeze astern. We ran up the
Oakland Estuary and came to anchor, and in the days that followed, while
Neil was ashore, we tightened up the _Reindeer’s_ rigging, overhauled the
ballast, scraped down, and put the sloop into thorough shape.
This done, time hung heavy on our hands. Neil’s wife was dangerously
ill, and the outlook was a week’s lie-over, awaiting the crisis. Charley
and I roamed the docks, wondering what we should do, and so came upon the
oyster fleet lying at the Oakland City Wharf. In the main they were
trim, natty boats, made for speed and bad weather, and we sat down on the
stringer-piece of the dock to study them.
“A good catch, I guess,” Charley said, pointing to the heaps of oysters,
assorted in three sizes, which lay upon their decks.
Pedlers were backing their wagons to the edge of the wharf, and from the
bargaining and chaffering that went on, I managed to learn the selling
price of the oysters.
“That boat must have at least two hundred dollars’ worth aboard,” I
calculated. “I wonder how long it took to get the load?”
“Three or four days,” Charley answered. “Not bad wages for two
men—twenty-five dollars a day apiece.”
The boat we were discussing, the _Ghost_, lay directly beneath us. Two
men composed its crew. One was a squat, broad-shouldered fellow with
remarkably long and gorilla-like arms, while the other was tall and well
proportioned, with clear blue eyes and a mat of straight black hair. So
unusual and striking was this combination of hair and eyes that Charley
and I remained somewhat longer than we intended.
And it was well that we did. A stout, elderly man, with the dress and
carriage of a successful merchant, came up and stood beside us, looking
down upon the deck of the _Ghost_. He appeared angry, and the longer he
looked the angrier he grew.
“Those are my oysters,” he said at last. “I know they are my oysters.
You raided my beds last night and robbed me of them.”
The tall man and the short man on the _Ghost_ looked up.
“Hello, Taft,” the short man said, with insolent familiarity. (Among the
bayfarers he had gained the nickname of “The Centipede” on account of his
long arms.) “Hello, Taft,” he repeated, with the same touch of
insolence. “Wot ’r you growling about now?”
“Those are my oysters—that’s what I said. You’ve stolen them from my
beds.”
“Yer mighty wise, ain’t ye?” was the Centipede’s sneering reply. “S’pose
you can tell your oysters wherever you see ’em?”
“Now, in my experience,” broke in the tall man, “oysters is oysters
wherever you find ’em, an’ they’re pretty much alike all the Bay over,
and the world over, too, for that matter. We’re not wantin’ to quarrel
with you, Mr. Taft, but we jes’ wish you wouldn’t insinuate that them
oysters is yours an’ that we’re thieves an’ robbers till you can prove
the goods.”
“I know they’re mine; I’d stake my life on it!” Mr. Taft snorted.
“Prove it,” challenged the tall man, who we afterward learned was known
as “The Porpoise” because of his wonderful swimming abilities.
Mr. Taft shrugged his shoulders helplessly. Of course he could not prove
the oysters to be his, no matter how certain he might be.
“I’d give a thousand dollars to have you men behind the bars!” he cried.
“I’ll give fifty dollars a head for your arrest and conviction, all of
you!”
A roar of laughter went up from the different boats, for the rest of the
pirates had been listening to the discussion.
“There’s more money in oysters,” the Porpoise remarked dryly.
Mr. Taft turned impatiently on his heel and walked away. From out of the
corner of his eye, Charley noted the way he went. Several minutes later,
when he had disappeared around a corner, Charley rose lazily to his feet.
I followed him, and we sauntered off in the opposite direction to that
taken by Mr. Taft.
“Come on! Lively!” Charley whispered, when we passed from the view of
the oyster fleet.
Our course was changed at once, and we dodged around corners and raced up
and down side-streets till Mr. Taft’s generous form loomed up ahead of
us.
“I’m going to interview him about that reward,” Charley explained, as we
rapidly overhauled the oyster-bed owner. “Neil will be delayed here for
a week, and you and I might as well be doing something in the meantime.
What do you say?”
“Of course, of course,” Mr. Taft said, when Charley had introduced
himself and explained his errand. “Those thieves are robbing me of
thousands of dollars every year, and I shall be glad to break them up at
any price,—yes, sir, at any price. As I said, I’ll give fifty dollars a
head, and call it cheap at that. They’ve robbed my beds, torn down my
signs, terrorized my watchmen, and last year killed one of them.
Couldn’t prove it. All done in the blackness of night. All I had was a
dead watchman and no evidence. The detectives could do nothing. Nobody
has been able to do anything with those men. We have never succeeded in
arresting one of them. So I say, Mr.—What did you say your name was?”
“Le Grant,” Charley answered.
“So I say, Mr. Le Grant, I am deeply obliged to you for the assistance
you offer. And I shall be glad, most glad, sir, to co-operate with you
in every way. My watchmen and boats are at your disposal. Come and see
me at the San Francisco offices any time, or telephone at my expense.
And don’t be afraid of spending money. I’ll foot your expenses, whatever
they are, so long as they are within reason. The situation is growing
desperate, and something must be done to determine whether I or that band
of ruffians own those oyster beds.”
“Now we’ll see Neil,” Charley said, when he had seen Mr. Taft upon his
train to San Francisco.
Not only did Neil Partington interpose no obstacle to our adventure, but
he proved to be of the greatest assistance. Charley and I knew nothing
of the oyster industry, while his head was an encyclopædia of facts
concerning it. Also, within an hour or so, he was able to bring to us a
Greek boy of seventeen or eighteen who knew thoroughly well the ins and
outs of oyster piracy.
At this point I may as well explain that we of the fish patrol were free
lances in a way. While Neil Partington, who was a patrolman proper,
received a regular salary, Charley and I, being merely deputies, received
only what we earned—that is to say, a certain percentage of the fines
imposed on convicted violators of the fish laws. Also, any rewards that
chanced our way were ours. We offered to share with Partington whatever
we should get from Mr. Taft, but the patrolman would not hear of it. He
was only too happy, he said, to do a good turn for us, who had done so
many for him.
We held a long council of war, and mapped out the following line of
action. Our faces were unfamiliar on the Lower Bay, but as the
_Reindeer_ was well known as a fish-patrol sloop, the Greek boy, whose
name was Nicholas, and I were to sail some innocent-looking craft down to
Asparagus Island and join the oyster pirates’ fleet. Here, according to
Nicholas’s description of the beds and the manner of raiding, it was
possible for us to catch the pirates in the act of stealing oysters, and
at the same time to get them in our power. Charley was to be on the
shore, with Mr. Taft’s watchmen and a posse of constables, to help us at
the right time.
“I know just the boat,” Neil said, at the conclusion of the discussion,
“a crazy old sloop that’s lying over at Tiburon. You and Nicholas can go
over by the ferry, charter it for a song, and sail direct for the beds.”
“Good luck be with you, boys,” he said at parting, two days later.
“Remember, they are dangerous men, so be careful.”
Nicholas and I succeeded in chartering the sloop very cheaply; and
between laughs, while getting up sail, we agreed that she was even
crazier and older than she had been described. She was a big,
flat-bottomed, square-sterned craft, sloop-rigged, with a sprung mast,
slack rigging, dilapidated sails, and rotten running-gear, clumsy to
handle and uncertain in bringing about, and she smelled vilely of coal
tar, with which strange stuff she had been smeared from stem to stern and
from cabin-roof to centreboard. And to cap it all, _Coal Tar Maggie_ was
printed in great white letters the whole length of either side.
It was an uneventful though laughable run from Tiburon to Asparagus
Island, where we arrived in the afternoon of the following day. The
oyster pirates, a fleet of a dozen sloops, were lying at anchor on what
was known as the “Deserted Beds.” The _Coal Tar Maggie_ came sloshing
into their midst with a light breeze astern, and they crowded on deck to
see us. Nicholas and I had caught the spirit of the crazy craft, and we
handled her in most lubberly fashion.
“Wot is it?” some one called.
“Name it ’n’ ye kin have it!” called another.
“I swan naow, ef it ain’t the old Ark itself!” mimicked the Centipede
from the deck of the _Ghost_.
“Hey! Ahoy there, clipper ship!” another wag shouted. “Wot’s yer port?”
We took no notice of the joking, but acted, after the manner of
greenhorns, as though the _Coal Tar Maggie_ required our undivided
attention. I rounded her well to windward of the _Ghost_, and Nicholas
ran for’ard to drop the anchor. To all appearances it was a bungle, the
way the chain tangled and kept the anchor from reaching the bottom. And
to all appearances Nicholas and I were terribly excited as we strove to
clear it. At any rate, we quite deceived the pirates, who took huge
delight in our predicament.
But the chain remained tangled, and amid all kinds of mocking advice we
drifted down upon and fouled the _Ghost_, whose bowsprit poked square
through our mainsail and ripped a hole in it as big as a barn door. The
Centipede and the Porpoise doubled up on the cabin in paroxysms of
laughter, and left us to get clear as best we could. This, with much
unseaman-like performance, we succeeded in doing, and likewise in
clearing the anchor-chain, of which we let out about three hundred feet.
With only ten feet of water under us, this would permit the _Coal Tar
Maggie_ to swing in a circle six hundred feet in diameter, in which
circle she would be able to foul at least half the fleet.
The oyster pirates lay snugly together at short hawsers, the weather
being fine, and they protested loudly at our ignorance in putting out
such an unwarranted length of anchor-chain. And not only did they
protest, for they made us heave it in again, all but thirty feet.
Having sufficiently impressed them with our general lubberliness,
Nicholas and I went below to congratulate ourselves and to cook supper.
Hardly had we finished the meal and washed the dishes, when a skiff
ground against the _Coal Tar Maggie’s_ side, and heavy feet trampled on
deck. Then the Centipede’s brutal face appeared in the companionway, and
he descended into the cabin, followed by the Porpoise. Before they could
seat themselves on a bunk, another skiff came alongside, and another, and
another, till the whole fleet was represented by the gathering in the
cabin.
“Where’d you swipe the old tub?” asked a squat and hairy man, with cruel
eyes and Mexican features.
“Didn’t swipe it,” Nicholas answered, meeting them on their own ground
and encouraging the idea that we had stolen the _Coal Tar Maggie_. “And
if we did, what of it?”
“Well, I don’t admire your taste, that’s all,” sneered he of the Mexican
features. “I’d rot on the beach first before I’d take a tub that
couldn’t get out of its own way.”
“How were we to know till we tried her?” Nicholas asked, so innocently as
to cause a laugh. “And how do you get the oysters?” he hurried on. “We
want a load of them; that’s what we came for, a load of oysters.”
“What d’ye want ’em for?” demanded the Porpoise.
“Oh, to give away to our friends, of course,” Nicholas retorted. “That’s
what you do with yours, I suppose.”
This started another laugh, and as our visitors grew more genial we could
see that they had not the slightest suspicion of our identity or purpose.
“Didn’t I see you on the dock in Oakland the other day?” the Centipede
asked suddenly of me.
“Yep,” I answered boldly, taking the bull by the horns. “I was watching
you fellows and figuring out whether we’d go oystering or not. It’s a
pretty good business, I calculate, and so we’re going in for it. That
is,” I hastened to add, “if you fellows don’t mind.”
“I’ll tell you one thing, which ain’t two things,” he replied, “and that
is you’ll have to hump yerself an’ get a better boat. We won’t stand to
be disgraced by any such box as this. Understand?”
“Sure,” I said. “Soon as we sell some oysters we’ll outfit in style.”
“And if you show yerself square an’ the right sort,” he went on, “why,
you kin run with us. But if you don’t” (here his voice became stern and
menacing), “why, it’ll be the sickest day of yer life. Understand?”
“Sure,” I said.
After that and more warning and advice of similar nature, the
conversation became general, and we learned that the beds were to be
raided that very night. As they got into their boats, after an hour’s
stay, we were invited to join them in the raid with the assurance of “the
more the merrier.”
“Did you notice that short, Mexican-looking chap?” Nicholas asked, when
they had departed to their various sloops. “He’s Barchi, of the Sporting
Life Gang, and the fellow that came with him is Skilling. They’re both
out now on five thousand dollars’ bail.”
I had heard of the Sporting Life Gang before, a crowd of hoodlums and
criminals that terrorized the lower quarters of Oakland, and two-thirds
of which were usually to be found in state’s prison for crimes that
ranged from perjury and ballot-box stuffing to murder.
“They are not regular oyster pirates,” Nicholas continued. “They’ve just
come down for the lark and to make a few dollars. But we’ll have to
watch out for them.”
We sat in the cockpit and discussed the details of our plan till eleven
o’clock had passed, when we heard the rattle of an oar in a boat from the
direction of the _Ghost_. We hauled up our own skiff, tossed in a few
sacks, and rowed over. There we found all the skiffs assembling, it
being the intention to raid the beds in a body.
To my surprise, I found barely a foot of water where we had dropped
anchor in ten feet. It was the big June run-out of the full moon, and as
the ebb had yet an hour and a half to run, I knew that our anchorage
would be dry ground before slack water.
Mr. Taft’s beds were three miles away, and for a long time we rowed
silently in the wake of the other boats, once in a while grounding and
our oar blades constantly striking bottom. At last we came upon soft mud
covered with not more than two inches of water—not enough to float the
boats. But the pirates at once were over the side, and by pushing and
pulling on the flat-bottomed skiffs, we moved steadily along.
The full moon was partly obscured by high-flying clouds, but the pirates
went their way with the familiarity born of long practice. After half a
mile of the mud, we came upon a deep channel, up which we rowed, with
dead oyster shoals looming high and dry on either side. At last we
reached the picking grounds. Two men, on one of the shoals, hailed us
and warned us off. But the Centipede, the Porpoise, Barchi, and Skilling
took the lead, and followed by the rest of us, at least thirty men in
half as many boats, rowed right up to the watchmen.
“You’d better slide outa this here,” Barchi said threateningly, “or we’ll
fill you so full of holes you wouldn’t float in molasses.”
The watchmen wisely retreated before so overwhelming a force, and rowed
their boat along the channel toward where the shore should be. Besides,
it was in the plan for them to retreat.
We hauled the noses of the boats up on the shore side of a big shoal, and
all hands, with sacks, spread out and began picking. Every now and again
the clouds thinned before the face of the moon, and we could see the big
oysters quite distinctly. In almost no time sacks were filled and
carried back to the boats, where fresh ones were obtained. Nicholas and
I returned often and anxiously to the boats with our little loads, but
always found some one of the pirates coming or going.
“Never mind,” he said; “no hurry. As they pick farther and farther away,
it will take too long to carry to the boats. Then they’ll stand the full
sacks on end and pick them up when the tide comes in and the skiffs will
float to them.”
Fully half an hour went by, and the tide had begun to flood, when this
came to pass. Leaving the pirates at their work, we stole back to the
boats. One by one, and noiselessly, we shoved them off and made them
fast in an awkward flotilla. Just as we were shoving off the last skiff,
our own, one of the men came upon us. It was Barchi. His quick eye took
in the situation at a glance, and he sprang for us; but we went clear
with a mighty shove, and he was left floundering in the water over his
head. As soon as he got back to the shoal he raised his voice and gave
the alarm.
We rowed with all our strength, but it was slow going with so many boats
in tow. A pistol cracked from the shoal, a second, and a third; then a
regular fusillade began. The bullets spat and spat all about us; but
thick clouds had covered the moon, and in the dim darkness it was no more
than random firing. It was only by chance that we could be hit.
“Wish we had a little steam launch,” I panted.
“I’d just as soon the moon stayed hidden,” Nicholas panted back.
It was slow work, but every stroke carried us farther away from the shoal
and nearer the shore, till at last the shooting died down, and when the
moon did come out we were too far away to be in danger. Not long
afterward we answered a shoreward hail, and two Whitehall boats, each
pulled by three pairs of oars, darted up to us. Charley’s welcome face
bent over to us, and he gripped us by the hands while he cried, “Oh, you
joys! You joys! Both of you!”
When the flotilla had been landed, Nicholas and I and a watchman rowed
out in one of the Whitehalls, with Charley in the stern-sheets. Two
other Whitehalls followed us, and as the moon now shone brightly, we
easily made out the oyster pirates on their lonely shoal. As we drew
closer, they fired a rattling volley from their revolvers, and we
promptly retreated beyond range.
“Lot of time,” Charley said. “The flood is setting in fast, and by the
time it’s up to their necks there won’t be any fight left in them.”
So we lay on our oars and waited for the tide to do its work. This was
the predicament of the pirates: because of the big run-out, the tide was
now rushing back like a mill-race, and it was impossible for the
strongest swimmer in the world to make against it the three miles to the
sloops. Between the pirates and the shore were we, precluding escape in
that direction. On the other hand, the water was rising rapidly over the
shoals, and it was only a question of a few hours when it would be over
their heads.
It was beautifully calm, and in the brilliant white moonlight we watched
them through our night glasses and told Charley of the voyage of the
_Coal Tar Maggie_. One o’clock came, and two o’clock, and the pirates
were clustering on the highest shoal, waist-deep in water.
“Now this illustrates the value of imagination,” Charley was saying.
“Taft has been trying for years to get them, but he went at it with bull
strength and failed. Now we used our heads . . .”
Just then I heard a scarcely audible gurgle of water, and holding up my
hand for silence, I turned and pointed to a ripple slowly widening out in
a growing circle. It was not more than fifty feet from us. We kept
perfectly quiet and waited. After a minute the water broke six feet
away, and a black head and white shoulder showed in the moonlight. With
a snort of surprise and of suddenly expelled breath, the head and
shoulder went down.
We pulled ahead several strokes and drifted with the current. Four pairs
of eyes searched the surface of the water, but never another ripple
showed, and never another glimpse did we catch of the black head and
white shoulder.
“It’s the Porpoise,” Nicholas said. “It would take broad daylight for us
to catch him.”
At a quarter to three the pirates gave their first sign of weakening. We
heard cries for help, in the unmistakable voice of the Centipede, and
this time, on rowing closer, we were not fired upon. The Centipede was
in a truly perilous plight. Only the heads and shoulders of his
fellow-marauders showed above the water as they braced themselves against
the current, while his feet were off the bottom and they were supporting
him.
“Now, lads,” Charley said briskly, “we have got you, and you can’t get
away. If you cut up rough, we’ll have to leave you alone and the water
will finish you. But if you’re good we’ll take you aboard, one man at a
time, and you’ll all be saved. What do you say?”
“Ay,” they chorused hoarsely between their chattering teeth.
“Then one man at a time, and the short men first.”
The Centipede was the first to be pulled aboard, and he came willingly,
though he objected when the constable put the handcuffs on him. Barchi
was next hauled in, quite meek and resigned from his soaking. When we
had ten in, our boat we drew back, and the second Whitehall was loaded.
The third Whitehall received nine prisoners only—a catch of twenty-nine
in all.
“You didn’t get the Porpoise,” the Centipede said exultantly, as though
his escape materially diminished our success.
Charley laughed. “But we saw him just the same, a-snorting for shore
like a puffing pig.”
It was a mild and shivering band of pirates that we marched up the beach
to the oyster house. In answer to Charley’s knock, the door was flung
open, and a pleasant wave of warm air rushed out upon us.
“You can dry your clothes here, lads, and get some hot coffee,” Charley
announced, as they filed in.
And there, sitting ruefully by the fire, with a steaming mug in his hand,
was the Porpoise. With one accord Nicholas and I looked at Charley. He
laughed gleefully.
“That comes of imagination,” he said. “When you see a thing, you’ve got
to see it all around, or what’s the good of seeing it at all? I saw the
beach, so I left a couple of constables behind to keep an eye on it.
That’s all.”