PERHAPS our most laughable exploit on the fish patrol, and at the same
time our most dangerous one, was when we rounded in, at a single haul, an
even score of wrathful fishermen. Charley called it a “coop,” having
heard Neil Partington use the term; but I think he misunderstood the
word, and thought it meant “coop,” to catch, to trap. The fishermen,
however, coup or coop, must have called it a Waterloo, for it was the
severest stroke ever dealt them by the fish patrol, while they had
invited it by open and impudent defiance of the law.
During what is called the “open season” the fishermen might catch as many
salmon as their luck allowed and their boats could hold. But there was
one important restriction. From sun-down Saturday night to sun-up Monday
morning, they were not permitted to set a net. This was a wise provision
on the part of the Fish Commission, for it was necessary to give the
spawning salmon some opportunity to ascend the river and lay their eggs.
And this law, with only an occasional violation, had been obediently
observed by the Greek fishermen who caught salmon for the canneries and
the market.
One Sunday morning, Charley received a telephone call from a friend in
Collinsville, who told him that the full force of fishermen was out with
its nets. Charley and I jumped into our salmon boat and started for the
scene of the trouble. With a light favoring wind at our back we went
through the Carquinez Straits, crossed Suisun Bay, passed the Ship Island
Light, and came upon the whole fleet at work.
But first let me describe the method by which they worked. The net used
is what is known as a gill-net. It has a simple diamond-shaped mesh
which measures at least seven and one-half inches between the knots.
From five to seven and even eight hundred feet in length, these nets are
only a few feet wide. They are not stationary, but float with the
current, the upper edge supported on the surface by floats, the lower
edge sunk by means of leaden weights.
This arrangement keeps the net upright in the current and effectually
prevents all but the smaller fish from ascending the river. The salmon,
swimming near the surface, as is their custom, run their heads through
these meshes, and are prevented from going on through by their larger
girth of body, and from going back because of their gills, which catch in
the mesh. It requires two fishermen to set such a net,—one to row the
boat, while the other, standing in the stern, carefully pays out the net.
When it is all out, stretching directly across the stream, the men make
their boat fast to one end of the net and drift along with it.
As we came upon the fleet of law-breaking fishermen, each boat two or
three hundred yards from its neighbors, and boats and nets dotting the
river as far as we could see, Charley said:
“I’ve only one regret, lad, and that is that I have’nt a thousand arms so
as to be able to catch them all. As it is, we’ll only be able to catch
one boat, for while we are tackling that one it will be up nets and away
with the rest.”
As we drew closer, we observed none of the usual flurry and excitement
which our appearance invariably produced. Instead, each boat lay quietly
by its net, while the fishermen favored us with not the slightest
attention.
“It’s curious,” Charley muttered. “Can it be they don’t recognize us?”
I said that it was impossible, and Charley agreed; yet there was a whole
fleet, manned by men who knew us only too well, and who took no more
notice of us than if we were a hay scow or a pleasure yacht.
This did not continue to be the case, however, for as we bore down upon
the nearest net, the men to whom it belonged detached their boat and
rowed slowly toward the shore. The rest of the boats showed no, sign of
uneasiness.
“That’s funny,” was Charley’s remark. “But we can confiscate the net, at
any rate.”
We lowered sail, picked up one end of the net, and began to heave it into
the boat. But at the first heave we heard a bullet zip-zipping past us
on the water, followed by the faint report of a rifle. The men who had
rowed ashore were shooting at us. At the next heave a second bullet went
zipping past, perilously near. Charley took a turn around a pin and sat
down. There were no more shots. But as soon as he began to heave in,
the shooting recommenced.
“That settles it,” he said, flinging the end of the net overboard. “You
fellows want it worse than we do, and you can have it.”
We rowed over toward the next net, for Charley was intent on finding out
whether or not we were face to face with an organized defiance. As we
approached, the two fishermen proceeded to cast off from their net and
row ashore, while the first two rowed back and made fast to the net we
had abandoned. And at the second net we were greeted by rifle shots till
we desisted and went on to the third, where the manœuvre was again
repeated.
Then we gave it up, completely routed, and hoisted sail and started on
the long windward beat back to Benicia. A number of Sundays went by, on
each of which the law was persistently violated. Yet, short of an armed
force of soldiers, we could do nothing. The fishermen had hit upon a new
idea and were using it for all it was worth, while there seemed no way by
which we could get the better of them.
About this time Neil Partington happened along from the Lower Bay, where
he had been for a number of weeks. With him was Nicholas, the Greek boy
who had helped us in our raid on the oyster pirates, and the pair of them
took a hand. We made our arrangements carefully. It was planned that
while Charley and I tackled the nets, they were to be hidden ashore so as
to ambush the fishermen who landed to shoot at us.
It was a pretty plan. Even Charley said it was. But we reckoned not
half so well as the Greeks. They forestalled us by ambushing Neil and
Nicholas and taking them prisoners, while, as of old, bullets whistled
about our ears when Charley and I attempted to take possession of the
nets. When we were again beaten off, Neil Partington and Nicholas were
released. They were rather shamefaced when they put in an appearance,
and Charley chaffed them unmercifully. But Neil chaffed back, demanding
to know why Charley’s imagination had not long since overcome the
difficulty.
“Just you wait; the idea’ll come all right,” Charley promised.
“Most probably,” Neil agreed. “But I’m afraid the salmon will be
exterminated first, and then there will be no need for it when it does
come.”
Neil Partington, highly disgusted with his adventure, departed for the
Lower Bay, taking Nicholas with him, and Charley and I were left to our
own resources. This meant that the Sunday fishing would be left to
itself, too, until such time as Charley’s idea happened along. I puzzled
my head a good deal to find out some way of checkmating the Greeks, as
also did Charley, and we broached a thousand expedients which on
discussion proved worthless.
The fishermen, on the other hand, were in high feather, and their boasts
went up and down the river to add to our discomfiture. Among all classes
of them we became aware of a growing insubordination. We were beaten,
and they were losing respect for us. With the loss of respect, contempt
began to arise. Charley began to be spoken of as the “olda woman,” and I
received my rating as the “pee-wee kid.” The situation was fast becoming
unbearable, and we knew that we should have to deliver a stunning stroke
at the Greeks in order to regain the old-time respect in which we had
stood.
Then one morning the idea came. We were down on Steamboat Wharf, where
the river steamers made their landings, and where we found a group of
amused long-shoremen and loafers listening to the hard-luck tale of a
sleepy-eyed young fellow in long sea-boots. He was a sort of amateur
fisherman, he said, fishing for the local market of Berkeley. Now
Berkeley was on the Lower Bay, thirty miles away. On the previous night,
he said, he had set his net and dozed off to sleep in the bottom of the
boat.
The next he knew it was morning, and he opened his eyes to find his boat
rubbing softly against the piles of Steamboat Wharf at Benicia. Also he
saw the river steamer _Apache_ lying ahead of him, and a couple of
deck-hands disentangling the shreds of his net from the paddle-wheel. In
short, after he had gone to sleep, his fisherman’s riding light had gone
out, and the _Apache_ had run over his net. Though torn pretty well to
pieces, the net in some way still remained foul, and he had had a
thirty-mile tow out of his course.
Charley nudged me with his elbow. I grasped his thought on the instant,
but objected:
“We can’t charter a steamboat.”
“Don’t intend to,” he rejoined. “But let’s run over to Turner’s
Shipyard. I’ve something in my mind there that may be of use to us.”
And over we went to the shipyard, where Charley led the way to the _Mary
Rebecca_, lying hauled out on the ways, where she was being cleaned and
overhauled. She was a scow-schooner we both knew well, carrying a cargo
of one hundred and forty tons and a spread of canvas greater than other
schooner on the bay.
“How d’ye do, Ole,” Charley greeted a big blue-shirted Swede who was
greasing the jaws of the main gaff with a piece of pork rind.
Ole grunted, puffed away at his pipe, and went on greasing. The captain
of a bay schooner is supposed to work with his hands just as well as the
men.
Ole Ericsen verified Charley’s conjecture that the _Mary Rebecca_, as
soon as launched, would run up the San Joaquin River nearly to Stockton
for a load of wheat. Then Charley made his proposition, and Ole Ericsen
shook his head.
“Just a hook, one good-sized hook,” Charley pleaded.
“No, Ay tank not,” said Ole Ericsen. “Der _Mary Rebecca_ yust hang up on
efery mud-bank with that hook. Ay don’t want to lose der _Mary Rebecca_.
She’s all Ay got.”
“No, no,” Charley hurried to explain. “We can put the end of the hook
through the bottom from the outside, and fasten it on the inside with a
nut. After it’s done its work, why, all we have to do is to go down into
the hold, unscrew the nut, and out drops the hook. Then drive a wooden
peg into the hole, and the _Mary Rebecca_ will be all right again.”
Ole Ericsen was obstinate for a long time; but in the end, after we had
had dinner with him, he was brought round to consent.
“Ay do it, by Yupiter!” he said, striking one huge fist into the palm of
the other hand. “But yust hurry you up wid der hook. Der _Mary Rebecca_
slides into der water to-night.”
It was Saturday, and Charley had need to hurry. We headed for the
shipyard blacksmith shop, where, under Charley’s directions, a most
generously curved book of heavy steel was made. Back we hastened to the
_Mary Rebecca_. Aft of the great centre-board case, through what was
properly her keel, a hole was bored. The end of the hook was inserted
from the outside, and Charley, on the inside, screwed the nut on tightly.
As it stood complete, the hook projected over a foot beneath the bottom
of the schooner. Its curve was something like the curve of a sickle, but
deeper.
In the late afternoon the _Mary Rebecca_ was launched, and preparations
were finished for the start up-river next morning. Charley and Ole
intently studied the evening sky for signs of wind, for without a good
breeze our project was doomed to failure. They agreed that there were
all the signs of a stiff westerly wind—not the ordinary afternoon
sea-breeze, but a half-gale, which even then was springing up.
Next morning found their predictions verified. The sun was shining
brightly, but something more than a half-gale was shrieking up the
Carquinez Straits, and the _Mary Rebecca_ got under way with two reefs in
her mainsail and one in her foresail. We found it quite rough in the
Straits and in Suisun Bay; but as the water grew more land-locked it
became calm, though without let-up in the wind.
Off Ship Island Light the reefs were shaken out, and at Charley’s
suggestion a big fisherman’s staysail was made all ready for hoisting,
and the maintopsail, bunched into a cap at the masthead, was overhauled
so that it could be set on an instant’s notice.
We were tearing along, wing-and-wing, before the wind, foresail to
starboard and mainsail to port, as we came upon the salmon fleet. There
they were, boats and nets, as on that first Sunday when they had bested
us, strung out evenly over the river as far as we could see. A narrow
space on the right-hand side of the channel was left clear for
steamboats, but the rest of the river was covered with the
wide-stretching nets. The narrow space was our logical course, but
Charley, at the wheel, steered the _Mary Rebecca_ straight for the nets.
This did not cause any alarm among the fishermen, because up-river
sailing craft are always provided with “shoes” on the ends of their
keels, which permit them to slip over the nets without fouling them.
“Now she takes it!” Charley cried, as we dashed across the middle of a
line of floats which marked a net. At one end of this line was a small
barrel buoy, at the other the two fishermen in their boat. Buoy and boat
at once began to draw together, and the fishermen to cry out, as they
were jerked after us. A couple of minutes later we hooked a second net,
and then a third, and in this fashion we tore straight up through the
centre of the fleet.
The consternation we spread among the fishermen was tremendous. As fast
as we hooked a net the two ends of it, buoy and boat, came together as
they dragged out astern; and so many buoys and boats, coming together at
such breakneck speed, kept the fishermen on the jump to avoid smashing
into one another. Also, they shouted at us like mad to heave to into the
wind, for they took it as some drunken prank on the part of scow-sailors,
little dreaming that we were the fish patrol.
The drag of a single net is very heavy, and Charley and Ole Ericsen
decided that even in such a wind ten nets were all the _Mary Rebecca_
could take along with her. So when we had hooked ten nets, with ten
boats containing twenty men streaming along behind us, we veered to the
left out of the fleet and headed toward Collinsville.
We were all jubilant. Charley was handling the wheel as though he were
steering the winning yacht home in a race. The two sailors who made up
the crew of the _Mary Rebecca_, were grinning and joking. Ole Ericsen
was rubbing his huge hands in child-like glee.
“Ay tank you fish patrol fallers never ban so lucky as when you sail with
Ole Ericsen,” he was saying, when a rifle cracked sharply astern, and a
bullet gouged along the newly painted cabin, glanced on a nail, and sang
shrilly onward into space.
This was too much for Ole Ericsen. At sight of his beloved paintwork
thus defaced, he jumped up and shook his fist at the fishermen; but a
second bullet smashed into the cabin not six inches from his head, and he
dropped down to the deck under cover of the rail.
All the fishermen had rifles, and they now opened a general fusillade.
We were all driven to cover—even Charley, who was compelled to desert the
wheel. Had it not been for the heavy drag of the nets, we would
inevitably have broached to at the mercy of the enraged fishermen. But
the nets, fastened to the bottom of the _Mary Rebecca_ well aft, held her
stern into the wind, and she continued to plough on, though somewhat
erratically.
Charley, lying on the deck, could just manage to reach the lower spokes
of the wheel; but while he could steer after a fashion, it was very
awkward. Ole Ericsen bethought himself of a large piece of sheet steel
in the empty hold.
It was in fact a plate from the side of the _New Jersey_, a steamer which
had recently been wrecked outside the Golden Gate, and in the salving of
which the _Mary Rebecca_ had taken part.
Crawling carefully along the deck, the two sailors, Ole, and myself got
the heavy plate on deck and aft, where we reared it as a shield between
the wheel and the fishermen. The bullets whanged and banged against it
till it rang like a bull’s-eye, but Charley grinned in its shelter, and
coolly went on steering.
So we raced along, behind us a howling, screaming bedlam of wrathful
Greeks, Collinsville ahead, and bullets spat-spatting all around us.
“Ole,” Charley said in a faint voice, “I don’t know what we’re going to
do.”
Ole Ericsen, lying on his back close to the rail and grinning upward at
the sky, turned over on his side and looked at him. “Ay tank we go into
Collinsville yust der same,” he said.
“But we can’t stop,” Charley groaned. “I never thought of it, but we
can’t stop.”
A look of consternation slowly overspread Ole Ericsen’s broad face. It
was only too true. We had a hornet’s nest on our hands, and to stop at
Collinsville would be to have it about our ears.
“Every man Jack of them has a gun,” one of the sailors remarked
cheerfully.
“Yes, and a knife, too,” the other sailor added.
It was Ole Ericsen’s turn to groan. “What for a Svaidish faller like me
monkey with none of my biziness, I don’t know,” he soliloquized.
A bullet glanced on the stern and sang off to starboard like a spiteful
bee. “There’s nothing to do but plump the _Mary Rebecca_ ashore and run
for it,” was the verdict of the first cheerful sailor.
“And leaf der _Mary Rebecca_?” Ole demanded, with unspeakable horror in
his voice.
“Not unless you want to,” was the response. “But I don’t want to be
within a thousand miles of her when those fellers come aboard”—indicating
the bedlam of excited Greeks towing behind.
We were right in at Collinsville then, and went foaming by within
biscuit-toss of the wharf.
“I only hope the wind holds out,” Charley said, stealing a glance at our
prisoners.
“What of der wind?” Ole demanded disconsolately. “Der river will not
hold out, and then . . . and then . . .”
“It’s head for tall timber, and the Greeks take the hindermost,” adjudged
the cheerful sailor, while Ole was stuttering over what would happen when
we came to the end of the river.
We had now reached a dividing of the ways. To the left was the mouth of
the Sacramento River, to the right the mouth of the San Joaquin. The
cheerful sailor crept forward and jibed over the foresail as Charley put
the helm to starboard and we swerved to the right into the San Joaquin.
The wind, from which we had been running away on an even keel, now caught
us on our beam, and the _Mary Rebecca_ was pressed down on her port side
as if she were about to capsize.
Still we dashed on, and still the fishermen dashed on behind. The value
of their nets was greater than the fines they would have to pay for
violating the fish laws; so to cast off from their nets and escape, which
they could easily do, would profit them nothing. Further, they remained
by their nets instinctively, as a sailor remains by his ship. And still
further, the desire for vengeance was roused, and we could depend upon it
that they would follow us to the ends of the earth, if we undertook to
tow them that far.
The rifle-firing had ceased, and we looked astern to see what our
prisoners were doing. The boats were strung along at unequal distances
apart, and we saw the four nearest ones bunching together. This was done
by the boat ahead trailing a small rope astern to the one behind. When
this was caught, they would cast off from their net and heave in on the
line till they were brought up to the boat in front. So great was the
speed at which we were travelling, however, that this was very slow work.
Sometimes the men would strain to their utmost and fail to get in an inch
of the rope; at other times they came ahead more rapidly.
When the four boats were near enough together for a man to pass from one
to another, one Greek from each of three got into the nearest boat to us,
taking his rifle with him. This made five in the foremost boat, and it
was plain that their intention was to board us. This they undertook to
do, by main strength and sweat, running hand over hand the float-line of
a net. And though it was slow, and they stopped frequently to rest, they
gradually drew nearer.
Charley smiled at their efforts, and said, “Give her the topsail, Ole.”
The cap at the mainmast head was broken out, and sheet and downhaul
pulled flat, amid a scattering rifle fire from the boats; and the _Mary
Rebecca_ lay over and sprang ahead faster than ever.
But the Greeks were undaunted. Unable, at the increased speed, to draw
themselves nearer by means of their hands, they rigged from the blocks of
their boat sail what sailors call a “watch-tackle.” One of them, held by
the legs by his mates, would lean far over the bow and make the tackle
fast to the float-line. Then they would heave in on the tackle till the
blocks were together, when the manœuvre would be repeated.
“Have to give her the staysail,” Charley said.
Ole Ericsen looked at the straining _Mary Rebecca_ and shook his head.
“It will take der masts out of her,” he said.
“And we’ll be taken out of her if you don’t,” Charley replied.
Ole shot an anxious glance at his masts, another at the boat load of
armed Greeks, and consented.
The five men were in the bow of the boat—a bad place when a craft is
towing. I was watching the behavior of their boat as the great
fisherman’s staysail, far, far larger than the topsail and used only in
light breezes, was broken out. As the _Mary Rebecca_ lurched forward
with a tremendous jerk, the nose of the boat ducked down into the water,
and the men tumbled over one another in a wild rush into the stern to
save the boat from being dragged sheer under water.
“That settles them!” Charley remarked, though he was anxiously studying
the behavior of the _Mary Rebecca_, which was being driven under far more
canvas than she was rightly able to carry.
“Next stop is Antioch!” announced the cheerful sailor, after the manner
of a railway conductor. “And next comes Merryweather!”
“Come here, quick,” Charley said to me.
I crawled across the deck and stood upright beside him in the shelter of
the sheet steel.
“Feel in my inside pocket,” he commanded, “and get my notebook. That’s
right. Tear out a blank page and write what I tell you.”
And this is what I wrote:
Telephone to Merryweather, to the sheriff, the constable, or the
judge. Tell them we are coming and to turn out the town. Arm
everybody. Have them down on the wharf to meet us or we are gone
gooses.
“Now make it good and fast to that marlin-spike, and stand by to toss it
ashore.”
I did as he directed. By then we were close to Antioch. The wind was
shouting through our rigging, the _Mary Rebecca_ was half over on her
side and rushing ahead like an ocean greyhound. The seafaring folk of
Antioch had seen us breaking out topsail and staysail, a most reckless
performance in such weather, and had hurried to the wharf-ends in little
groups to find out what was the matter.
Straight down the water front we boomed, Charley edging in till a man
could almost leap ashore. When he gave the signal I tossed the
marlinspike. It struck the planking of the wharf a resounding smash,
bounced along fifteen or twenty feet, and was pounced upon by the amazed
onlookers.
It all happened in a flash, for the next minute Antioch was behind and we
were heeling it up the San Joaquin toward Merryweather, six miles away.
The river straightened out here into its general easterly course, and we
squared away before the wind, wing-and-wing once more, the foresail
bellying out to starboard.
Ole Ericsen seemed sunk into a state of stolid despair. Charley and the
two sailors were looking hopeful, as they had good reason to be.
Merryweather was a coal-mining town, and, it being Sunday, it was
reasonable to expect the men to be in town. Further, the coal-miners had
never lost any love for the Greek fishermen, and were pretty certain to
render us hearty assistance.
We strained our eyes for a glimpse of the town, and the first sight we
caught of it gave us immense relief. The wharves were black with men.
As we came closer, we could see them still arriving, stringing down the
main street, guns in their hands and on the run. Charley glanced astern
at the fishermen with a look of ownership in his eye which till then had
been missing. The Greeks were plainly overawed by the display of armed
strength and were putting their own rifles away.
We took in topsail and staysail, dropped the main peak, and as we got
abreast of the principal wharf jibed the mainsail. The _Mary Rebecca_
shot around into the wind, the captive fishermen describing a great arc
behind her, and forged ahead till she lost way, when lines we’re flung
ashore and she was made fast. This was accomplished under a hurricane of
cheers from the delighted miners.
Ole Ericsen heaved a great sigh. “Ay never tank Ay see my wife never
again,” he confessed.
“Why, we were never in any danger,” said Charley.
Ole looked at him incredulously.
“Sure, I mean it,” Charley went on. “All we had to do, any time, was to
let go our end—as I am going to do now, so that those Greeks can untangle
their nets.”
He went below with a monkey-wrench, unscrewed the nut, and let the hook
drop off. When the Greeks had hauled their nets into their boats and
made everything shipshape, a posse of citizens took them off our hands
and led them away to jail.
“Ay tank Ay ban a great big fool,” said Ole Ericsen. But he changed his
mind when the admiring townspeople crowded aboard to shake hands with
him, and a couple of enterprising newspaper men took photographs of the
_Mary Rebecca_ and her captain.