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TALES OF THE FISH
PATROL
BY
JACK LONDON
AUTHOR OF "THE SEA-WOLF," "PEOPLE OF THE
ABYSS," "THE CALL OF THE WILD," ETC.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
GEORGE VARIAN_
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1905
_All rights reserved_
Copyright, 1905,
By PERRY MASON COMPANY.
Copyright, 1905,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1905. Reprinted December,
1905.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
[Illustration: "I put my hand to my hip pocket."]
WORKS OF JACK LONDON
THE GAME
THE SEA-WOLF
THE CALL OF THE WILD
THE CHILDREN OF THE FROST
PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS
THE FAITH OF MEN AND OTHER STORIES
WAR OF THE CLASSES
THE KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS
TALES OF THE FISH PATROL
PUBLISHED BY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Contents
PAGE
I. White and Yellow 9
II. The King of the Greeks 39
III. A Raid on the Oyster Pirates 71
IV. The Siege of the "Lancashire Queen" 103
V. Charley's Coup 139
VI. Demetrios Contos 175
VII. Yellow Handkerchief 209
Illustrations
"I put my hand to my hip pocket" _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Map 11
"He saw fit to laugh and sneer at us, before all the fishermen" 60
"The Centipede and the Porpoise doubled up on the cabin
in paroxysms of laughter" 86
"I suddenly arose and threw the grappling iron" 116
"The consternation we spread among the fishermen was tremendous" 158
"There, in the stern, sat Demetrios Contos" 204
"I went aft and took charge of the prize" 218
TALES OF THE FISH PATROL
I
WHITE AND YELLOW
[Illustration: Map]
San Francisco Bay is so large that often its storms are more disastrous
to ocean-going craft than is the ocean itself in its violent moments.
The waters of the bay contain all manner of fish, wherefore its surface
is ploughed by the keels of all manner of fishing boats manned by all
manner of fishermen. To protect the fish from this motley floating
population many wise laws have been passed, and there is a fish patrol
to see that these laws are enforced. Exciting times are the lot of the
fish patrol: in its history more than one dead patrolman has marked
defeat, and more often dead fishermen across their illegal nets have
marked success.
Wildest among the fisher-folk may be accounted the Chinese
shrimp-catchers. It is the habit of the shrimp to crawl along the
bottom in vast armies till it reaches fresh water, when it turns about
and crawls back again to the salt. And where the tide ebbs and flows,
the Chinese sink great bag-nets to the bottom, with gaping mouths, into
which the shrimp crawls and from which it is transferred to the
boiling-pot. This in itself would not be bad, were it not for the small
mesh of the nets, so small that the tiniest fishes, little new-hatched
things not a quarter of an inch long, cannot pass through. The beautiful
beaches of Points Pedro and Pablo, where are the shrimp-catchers
villages, are made fearful by the stench from myriads of decaying fish,
and against this wasteful destruction it has ever been the duty of the
fish patrol to act.
When I was a youngster of sixteen, a good sloop-sailor and all-round
bay-waterman, my sloop, the _Reindeer_, was chartered by the Fish
Commission, and I became for the time being a deputy patrolman. After a
deal of work among the Greek fishermen of the Upper Bay and rivers,
where knives flashed at the beginning of trouble and men permitted
themselves to be made prisoners only after a revolver was thrust in
their faces, we hailed with delight an expedition to the Lower Bay
against the Chinese shrimp-catchers.
There were six of us, in two boats, and to avoid suspicion we ran down
after dark and dropped anchor under a projecting bluff of land known as
Point Pinole. As the east paled with the first light of dawn we got
under way again, and hauled close on the land breeze as we slanted
across the bay toward Point Pedro. The morning mists curled and clung
to the water so that we could see nothing, but we busied ourselves
driving the chill from our bodies with hot coffee. Also we had to
devote ourselves to the miserable task of bailing, for in some
incomprehensible way the _Reindeer_ had sprung a generous leak. Half
the night had been spent in overhauling the ballast and exploring the
seams, but the labor had been without avail. The water still poured in,
and perforce we doubled up in the cockpit and tossed it out again.
After coffee, three of the men withdrew to the other boat, a Columbia
River salmon boat, leaving three of us in the _Reindeer_. Then the two
craft proceeded in company till the sun showed over the eastern
skyline. Its fiery rays dispelled the clinging vapors, and there,
before our eyes, like a picture, lay the shrimp fleet, spread out in a
great half-moon, the tips of the crescent fully three miles apart, and
each junk moored fast to the buoy of a shrimp-net. But there was no
stir, no sign of life.
The situation dawned upon us. While waiting for slack water, in which
to lift their heavy nets from the bed of the bay, the Chinese had all
gone to sleep below. We were elated, and our plan of battle was swiftly
formed.
"Throw each of your two men on to a junk," whispered Le Grant to me
from the salmon boat. "And you make fast to a third yourself. We'll do
the same, and there's no reason in the world why we shouldn't capture
six junks at the least."
Then we separated. I put the _Reindeer_ about on the other tack, ran up
under the lee of a junk, shivered the mainsail into the wind and lost
headway, and forged past the stern of the junk so slowly and so near
that one of the patrolmen stepped lightly aboard. Then I kept off,
filled the mainsail, and bore away for a second junk.
Up to this time there had been no noise, but from the first junk
captured by the salmon boat an uproar now broke forth. There was shrill
Oriental yelling, a pistol shot, and more yelling.
"It's all up. They're warning the others," said George, the remaining
patrolman, as he stood beside me in the cockpit.
By this time we were in the thick of the fleet, and the alarm was
spreading with incredible swiftness. The decks were beginning to swarm
with half-awakened and half-naked Chinese. Cries and yells of warning
and anger were flying over the quiet water, and somewhere a conch shell
was being blown with great success. To the right of us I saw the
captain of a junk chop away his mooring line with an axe and spring to
help his crew at the hoisting of the huge, outlandish lug-sail. But to
the left the first heads were popping up from below on another junk, and
I rounded up the _Reindeer_ alongside long enough for George to spring
aboard.
The whole fleet was now under way. In addition to the sails they had
gotten out long sweeps, and the bay was being ploughed in every
direction by the fleeing junks. I was now alone in the _Reindeer_,
seeking feverishly to capture a third prize. The first junk I took after
was a clean miss, for it trimmed its sheets and shot away surprisingly
into the wind. By fully half a point it outpointed the _Reindeer_, and I
began to feel respect for the clumsy craft. Realizing the hopelessness
of the pursuit, I filled away, threw out the main-sheet, and drove down
before the wind upon the junks to leeward, where I had them at a
disadvantage.
The one I had selected wavered indecisively before me, and, as I swung
wide to make the boarding gentle, filled suddenly and darted away, the
swart Mongols shouting a wild rhythm as they bent to the sweeps. But I
had been ready for this. I luffed suddenly. Putting the tiller hard
down, and holding it down with my body, I brought the main-sheet in,
hand over hand, on the run, so as to retain all possible striking
force. The two starboard sweeps of the junk were crumpled up, and then
the two boats came together with a crash. The _Reindeer's_ bowsprit,
like a monstrous hand, reached over and ripped out the junk's chunky
mast and towering sail.
This was met by a curdling yell of rage. A big Chinaman, remarkably
evil-looking, with his head swathed in a yellow silk handkerchief and
face badly pock-marked, planted a pike-pole on the _Reindeer's_ bow and
began to shove the entangled boats apart. Pausing long enough to let go
the jib halyards, and just as the _Reindeer_ cleared and began to drift
astern, I leaped aboard the junk with a line and made fast. He of the
yellow handkerchief and pock-marked face came toward me threateningly,
but I put my hand into my hip pocket, and he hesitated. I was unarmed,
but the Chinese have learned to be fastidiously careful of American hip
pockets, and it was upon this that I depended to keep him and his
savage crew at a distance.
I ordered him to drop the anchor at the junk's bow, to which he replied,
"No sabbe." The crew responded in like fashion, and though I made my
meaning plain by signs, they refused to understand. Realizing the
inexpediency of discussing the matter, I went forward myself, overran
the line, and let the anchor go.
"Now get aboard, four of you," I said in a loud voice, indicating with
my fingers that four of them were to go with me and the fifth was to
remain by the junk. The Yellow Handkerchief hesitated; but I repeated
the order fiercely (much more fiercely than I felt), at the same time
sending my hand to my hip. Again the Yellow Handkerchief was overawed,
and with surly looks he led three of his men aboard the _Reindeer_. I
cast off at once, and, leaving the jib down, steered a course for
George's junk. Here it was easier, for there were two of us, and George
had a pistol to fall back on if it came to the worst. And here, as with
my junk, four Chinese were transferred to the sloop and one left behind
to take care of things.
Four more were added to our passenger list from the third junk. By this
time the salmon boat had collected its twelve prisoners and came
alongside, badly overloaded. To make matters worse, as it was a small
boat, the patrolmen were so jammed in with their prisoners that they
would have little chance in case of trouble.
"You'll have to help us out," said Le Grant.
I looked over my prisoners, who had crowded into the cabin and on top
of it. "I can take three," I answered.
"Make it four," he suggested, "and I'll take Bill with me." (Bill was
the third patrolman.) "We haven't elbow room here, and in case of a
scuffle one white to every two of them will be just about the right
proportion."
The exchange was made, and the salmon boat got up its spritsail and
headed down the bay toward the marshes off San Rafael. I ran up the jib
and followed with the _Reindeer_. San Rafael, where we were to turn our
catch over to the authorities, communicated with the bay by way of a
long and tortuous slough, or marshland creek, which could be navigated
only when the tide was in. Slack water had come, and, as the ebb was
commencing, there was need for hurry if we cared to escape waiting half
a day for the next tide.
But the land breeze had begun to die away with the rising sun, and now
came only in failing puffs. The salmon boat got out its oars and soon
left us far astern. Some of the Chinese stood in the forward part of
the cockpit, near the cabin doors, and once, as I leaned over the
cockpit rail to flatten down the jib-sheet a bit, I felt some one brush
against my hip pocket. I made no sign, but out of the corner of my eye
I saw that the Yellow Handkerchief had discovered the emptiness of the
pocket which had hitherto overawed him.
To make matters serious, during all the excitement of boarding the
junks the _Reindeer_ had not been bailed, and the water was beginning
to slush over the cockpit floor. The shrimp-catchers pointed at it and
looked to me questioningly.
"Yes," I said. "Bime by, allee same dlown, velly quick, you no bail
now. Sabbe?"
No, they did not "sabbe," or at least they shook their heads to that
effect, though they chattered most comprehendingly to one another in
their own lingo. I pulled up three or four of the bottom boards, got a
couple of buckets from a locker, and by unmistakable sign-language
invited them to fall to. But they laughed, and some crowded into the
cabin and some climbed up on top.
Their laughter was not good laughter. There was a hint of menace in it,
a maliciousness which their black looks verified. The Yellow
Handkerchief, since his discovery of my empty pocket, had become most
insolent in his bearing, and he wormed about among the other prisoners,
talking to them with great earnestness.
Swallowing my chagrin, I stepped down into the cockpit and began
throwing out the water. But hardly had I begun, when the boom swung
overhead, the mainsail filled with a jerk, and the _Reindeer_ heeled
over. The day wind was springing up. George was the veriest of
landlubbers, so I was forced to give over bailing and take the tiller.
The wind was blowing directly off Point Pedro and the high mountains
behind, and because of this was squally and uncertain, half the time
bellying the canvas out, and the other half flapping it idly.
George was about the most all-round helpless man I had ever met. Among
his other disabilities, he was a consumptive, and I knew that if he
attempted to bail, it might bring on a hemorrhage. Yet the rising water
warned me that something must be done. Again I ordered the
shrimp-catchers to lend a hand with the buckets. They laughed defiantly,
and those inside the cabin, the water up to their ankles, shouted back
and forth with those on top.
"You'd better get out your gun and make them bail," I said to George.
But he shook his head and showed all too plainly that he was afraid.
The Chinese could see the funk he was in as well as I could, and their
insolence became insufferable. Those in the cabin broke into the food
lockers, and those above scrambled down and joined them in a feast on
our crackers and canned goods.
"What do we care?" George said weakly.
I was fuming with helpless anger. "If they get out of hand, it will be
too late to care. The best thing you can do is to get them in check
right now."
The water was rising higher and higher, and the gusts, forerunners of a
steady breeze, were growing stiffer and stiffer. And between the gusts,
the prisoners, having gotten away with a week's grub, took to crowding
first to one side and then to the other till the _Reindeer_ rocked like
a cockle-shell. Yellow Handkerchief approached me, and, pointing out
his village on the Point Pedro beach, gave me to understand that if I
turned the _Reindeer_ in that direction and put them ashore, they, in
turn, would go to bailing. By now the water in the cabin was up to the
bunks, and the bed-clothes were sopping. It was a foot deep on the
cockpit floor. Nevertheless I refused, and I could see by George's face
that he was disappointed.
"If you don't show some nerve, they'll rush us and throw us overboard,"
I said to him. "Better give me your revolver, if you want to be safe."
"The safest thing to do," he chattered cravenly, "is to put them
ashore. I, for one, don't want to be drowned for the sake of a handful
of dirty Chinamen."
"And I, for another, don't care to give in to a handful of dirty
Chinamen to escape drowning," I answered hotly.
"You'll sink the _Reindeer_ under us all at this rate," he whined. "And
what good that'll do I can't see."
"Every man to his taste," I retorted.
He made no reply, but I could see he was trembling pitifully. Between
the threatening Chinese and the rising water he was beside himself with
fright; and, more than the Chinese and the water, I feared him and what
his fright might impel him to do. I could see him casting longing
glances at the small skiff towing astern, so in the next calm I hauled
the skiff alongside. As I did so his eyes brightened with hope; but
before he could guess my intention, I stove the frail bottom through
with a hand-axe, and the skiff filled to its gunwales.
"It's sink or float together," I said. "And if you'll give me your
revolver, I'll have the _Reindeer_ bailed out in a jiffy."
"They're too many for us," he whimpered. "We can't fight them all."
I turned my back on him in disgust. The salmon boat had long since
passed from sight behind a little archipelago known as the Marin
Islands, so no help could be looked for from that quarter. Yellow
Handkerchief came up to me in a familiar manner, the water in the
cockpit slushing against his legs. I did not like his looks. I felt that
beneath the pleasant smile he was trying to put on his face there was an
ill purpose. I ordered him back, and so sharply that he obeyed.
"Now keep your distance," I commanded, "and don't you come closer!"
"Wha' fo'?" he demanded indignantly. "I t'ink-um talkee talkee heap
good."
"Talkee talkee," I answered bitterly, for I knew now that he had
understood all that passed between George and me. "What for talkee
talkee? You no sabbe talkee talkee."
He grinned in a sickly fashion. "Yep, I sabbe velly much. I honest
Chinaman."
"All right," I answered. "You sabbe talkee talkee, then you bail water
plenty plenty. After that we talkee talkee."
He shook his head, at the same time pointing over his shoulder to his
comrades. "No can do. Velly bad Chinamen, heap velly bad. I t'ink-um--"
"Stand back!" I shouted, for I had noticed his hand disappear beneath
his blouse and his body prepare for a spring.
Disconcerted, he went back into the cabin, to hold a council,
apparently, from the way the jabbering broke forth. The _Reindeer_ was
very deep in the water, and her movements had grown quite loggy. In a
rough sea she would have inevitably swamped; but the wind, when it did
blow, was off the land, and scarcely a ripple disturbed the surface of
the bay.
"I think you'd better head for the beach," George said abruptly, in a
manner that told me his fear had forced him to make up his mind to some
course of action.
"I think not," I answered shortly.
"I command you," he said in a bullying tone.
"I was commanded to bring these prisoners into San Rafael," was my
reply.
Our voices were raised, and the sound of the altercation brought the
Chinese out of the cabin.
"Now will you head for the beach?"
This from George, and I found myself looking into the muzzle of his
revolver--of the revolver he dared to use on me, but was too cowardly
to use on the prisoners.
My brain seemed smitten with a dazzling brightness. The whole situation,
in all its bearings, was focussed sharply before me--the shame of
losing the prisoners, the worthlessness and cowardice of George, the
meeting with Le Grant and the other patrol-men and the lame explanation;
and then there was the fight I had fought so hard, victory wrenched
from me just as I thought I had it within my grasp. And out of the tail
of my eye I could see the Chinese crowding together by the cabin doors
and leering triumphantly. It would never do.
I threw my hand up and my head down. The first act elevated the muzzle,
and the second removed my head from the path of the bullet which went
whistling past. One hand closed on George's wrist, the other on the
revolver. Yellow Handkerchief and his gang sprang toward me. It was now
or never. Putting all my strength into a sudden effort, I swung
George's body forward to meet them. Then I pulled back with equal
suddenness, ripping the revolver out of his fingers and jerking him off
his feet. He fell against Yellow Handkerchief's knees, who stumbled over
him, and the pair wallowed in the bailing hole where the cockpit floor
was torn open. The next instant I was covering them with my revolver,
and the wild shrimp-catchers were cowering and cringing away.
But I swiftly discovered that there was all the difference in the world
between shooting men who are attacking and men who are doing nothing
more than simply refusing to obey. For obey they would not when I
ordered them into the bailing hole. I threatened them with the revolver,
but they sat stolidly in the flooded cabin and on the roof and would
not move.
Fifteen minutes passed, the _Reindeer_ sinking deeper and deeper, her
mainsail flapping in the calm. But from off the Point Pedro shore I saw
a dark line form on the water and travel toward us. It was the steady
breeze I had been expecting so long. I called to the Chinese and
pointed it out. They hailed it with exclamations. Then I pointed to the
sail and to the water in the _Reindeer_, and indicated by signs that
when the wind reached the sail, what of the water aboard we would
capsize. But they jeered defiantly, for they knew it was in my power to
luff the helm and let go the main-sheet, so as to spill the wind and
escape damage.
But my mind was made up. I hauled in the main-sheet a foot or two, took
a turn with it, and bracing my feet, put my back against the tiller.
This left me one hand for the sheet and one for the revolver. The dark
line drew nearer, and I could see them looking from me to it and back
again with an apprehension they could not successfully conceal. My
brain and will and endurance were pitted against theirs, and the
problem was which could stand the strain of imminent death the longer
and not give in.
Then the wind struck us. The mainsheet tautened with a brisk rattling
of the blocks, the boom uplifted, the sail bellied out, and the
_Reindeer_ heeled over--over, and over, till the lee-rail went under,
the deck went under, the cabin windows went under, and the bay began to
pour in over the cockpit rail. So violently had she heeled over, that
the men in the cabin had been thrown on top of one another into the lee
bunk, where they squirmed and twisted and were washed about, those
underneath being perilously near to drowning.
The wind freshened a bit, and the _Reindeer_ went over farther than
ever. For the moment I thought she was gone, and I knew that another
puff like that and she surely would go. While I pressed her under and
debated whether I should give up or not, the Chinese cried for mercy. I
think it was the sweetest sound I have ever heard. And then, and not
until then, did I luff up and ease out the main-sheet. The _Reindeer_
righted very slowly, and when she was on an even keel was so much awash
that I doubted if she could be saved.
But the Chinese scrambled madly into the cockpit and fell to bailing
with buckets, pots, pans, and everything they could lay hands on. It
was a beautiful sight to see that water flying over the side! And when
the _Reindeer_ was high and proud on the water once more, we dashed
away with the breeze on our quarter, and at the last possible moment
crossed the mud flats and entered the slough.
The spirit of the Chinese was broken, and so docile did they become
that ere we made San Rafael they were out with the tow-rope, Yellow
Handkerchief at the head of the line. As for George, it was his last
trip with the fish patrol. He did not care for that sort of thing, he
explained, and he thought a clerkship ashore was good enough for him.
And we thought so, too.
II
THE KING OF THE GREEKS
Big Alec had never been captured by the fish patrol. It was his boast
that no man could take him alive, and it was his history that of the
many men who had tried to take him dead none had succeeded. It was also
history that at least two patrolmen who had tried to take him dead had
died themselves. Further, no man violated the fish laws more
systematically and deliberately than Big Alec.
He was called "Big Alec" because of his gigantic stature. His height
was six feet three inches, and he was correspondingly broad-shouldered
and deep-chested. He was splendidly muscled and hard as steel, and
there were innumerable stories in circulation among the fisher-folk
concerning his prodigious strength. He was as bold and dominant of
spirit as he was strong of body, and because of this he was widely
known by another name, that of "The King of the Greeks." The fishing
population was largely composed of Greeks, and they looked up to him
and obeyed him as their chief. And as their chief, he fought their
fights for them, saw that they were protected, saved them from the law
when they fell into its clutches, and made them stand by one another
and himself in time of trouble.
In the old days, the fish patrol had attempted his capture many
disastrous times and had finally given it over, so that when the word
was out that he was coming to Benicia, I was most anxious to see him.
But I did not have to hunt him up. In his usual bold way, the first
thing he did on arriving was to hunt us up. Charley Le Grant and I at
the time were under a patrolman named Carmintel, and the three of us
were on the _Reindeer_, preparing for a trip, when Big Alec stepped
aboard. Carmintel evidently knew him, for they shook hands in
recognition. Big Alec took no notice of Charley or me.
"I've come down to fish sturgeon a couple of months," he said to
Carmintel.
His eyes flashed with challenge as he spoke, and we noticed the
patrolman's eyes drop before him.
"That's all right, Alec," Carmintel said in a low voice. "I'll not
bother you. Come on into the cabin, and we'll talk things over," he
added.
When they had gone inside and shut the doors after them, Charley winked
with slow deliberation at me. But I was only a youngster, and new to
men and the ways of some men, so I did not understand. Nor did Charley
explain, though I felt there was something wrong about the business.
Leaving them to their conference, at Charley's suggestion we boarded
our skiff and pulled over to the Old Steamboat Wharf, where Big Alec's
ark was lying. An ark is a house-boat of small though comfortable
dimensions, and is as necessary to the Upper Bay fisherman as are nets
and boats. We were both curious to see Big Alec's ark, for history said
that it had been the scene of more than one pitched battle, and that it
was riddled with bullet-holes.
We found the holes (stopped with wooden plugs and painted over), but
there were not so many as I had expected. Charley noted my look of
disappointment, and laughed; and then to comfort me he gave an
authentic account of one expedition which had descended upon Big Alec's
floating home to capture him, alive preferably, dead if necessary. At
the end of half a day's fighting, the patrolmen had drawn off in
wrecked boats, with one of their number killed and three wounded. And
when they returned next morning with reenforcements they found only the
mooring-stakes of Big Alec's ark; the ark itself remained hidden for
months in the fastnesses of the Suisun tules.
"But why was he not hanged for murder?" I demanded. "Surely the United
States is powerful enough to bring such a man to justice."
"He gave himself up and stood trial," Charley answered. "It cost him
fifty thousand dollars to win the case, which he did on technicalities
and with the aid of the best lawyers in the state. Every Greek
fisherman on the river contributed to the sum. Big Alec levied and
collected the tax, for all the world like a king. The United States may
be all-powerful, my lad, but the fact remains that Big Alec is a king
inside the United States, with a country and subjects all his own."
"But what are you going to do about his fishing for sturgeon? He's
bound to fish with a 'Chinese line.'"
Charley shrugged his shoulders. "We'll see what we will see," he said
enigmatically.
Now a "Chinese line" is a cunning device invented by the people whose
name it bears. By a simple system of floats, weights, and anchors,
thousands of hooks, each on a separate leader, are suspended at a
distance of from six inches to a foot above the bottom. The remarkable
thing about such a line is the hook. It is barbless, and in place of
the barb, the hook is filed long and tapering to a point as sharp as
that of a needle. These hooks are only a few inches apart, and when
several thousand of them are suspended just above the bottom, like a
fringe, for a couple of hundred fathoms, they present a formidable
obstacle to the fish that travel along the bottom.
Such a fish is the sturgeon, which goes rooting along like a pig, and
indeed is often called "pig-fish." Pricked by the first hook it touches,
the sturgeon gives a startled leap and comes into contact with half a
dozen more hooks. Then it threshes about wildly, until it receives hook
after hook in its soft flesh; and the hooks, straining from many
different angles, hold the luckless fish fast until it is drowned.
Because no sturgeon can pass through a Chinese line, the device is
called a trap in the fish laws; and because it bids fair to exterminate
the sturgeon, it is branded by the fish laws as illegal. And such a
line, we were confident, Big Alec intended setting, in open and flagrant
violation of the law.
Several days passed after the visit of Big Alec, during which Charley
and I kept a sharp watch on him. He towed his ark around the Solano
Wharf and into the big bight at Turner's Shipyard. The bight we knew to
be good ground for sturgeon, and there we felt sure the King of the
Greeks intended to begin operations. The tide circled like a mill-race
in and out of this bight, and made it possible to raise, lower, or set
a Chinese line only at slack water. So between the tides Charley and I
made it a point for one or the other of us to keep a lookout from the
Solano Wharf.
On the fourth day I was lying in the sun behind the stringer-piece of
the wharf, when I saw a skiff leave the distant shore and pull out into
the bight. In an instant the glasses were at my eyes and I was
following every movement of the skiff. There were two men in it, and
though it was a good mile away, I made out one of them to be Big Alec;
and ere the skiff returned to shore I made out enough more to know that
the Greek had set his line.
"Big Alec has a Chinese line out in the bight off Turner's Shipyard,"
Charley Le Grant said that afternoon to Carmintel.
A fleeting expression of annoyance passed over the patrolman's face,
and then he said, "Yes?" in an absent way, and that was all.
Charley bit his lip with suppressed anger and turned on his heel.
"Are you game, my lad?" he said to me later on in the evening, just as
we finished washing down the _Reindeer's_ decks and were preparing to
turn in.
A lump came up in my throat, and I could only nod my head.
"Well, then," and Charley's eyes glittered in a determined way, "we've
got to capture Big Alec between us, you and I, and we've got to do it
in spite of Carmintel. Will you lend a hand?"
"It's a hard proposition, but we can do it," he added after a pause.
"Of course we can," I supplemented enthusiastically.
And then he said, "Of course we can," and we shook hands on it and went
to bed.
But it was no easy task we had set ourselves. In order to convict a man
of illegal fishing, it was necessary to catch him in the act with all
the evidence of the crime about him--the hooks, the lines, the fish,
and the man himself. This meant that we must take Big Alec on the open
water, where he could see us coming and prepare for us one of the warm
receptions for which he was noted.
"There's no getting around it," Charley said one morning. "If we can
only get alongside it's an even toss, and there's nothing left for us
but to try and get alongside. Come on, lad."
We were in the Columbia River salmon boat, the one we had used against
the Chinese shrimp-catchers. Slack water had come, and as we dropped
around the end of the Solano Wharf we saw Big Alec at work, running his
line and removing the fish.
"Change places," Charley commanded, "and steer just astern of him as
though you're going into the shipyard."
I took the tiller, and Charley sat down on a thwart amidships, placing
his revolver handily beside him.
"If he begins to shoot," he cautioned, "get down in the bottom and steer
from there, so that nothing more than your hand will be exposed."
I nodded, and we kept silent after that, the boat slipping gently
through the water and Big Alec growing nearer and nearer. We could see
him quite plainly, gaffing the sturgeon and throwing them into the boat
while his companion ran the line and cleared the hooks as he dropped
them back into the water. Nevertheless, we were five hundred yards away
when the big fisherman hailed us.
"Here! You! What do you want?" he shouted.
"Keep going," Charley whispered, "just as though you didn't hear him."
The next few moments were very anxious ones. The fisherman was studying
us sharply, while we were gliding up on him every second.
"You keep off if you know what's good for you!" he called out suddenly,
as though he had made up his mind as to who and what we were. "If you
don't, I'll fix you!"
He brought a rifle to his shoulder and trained it on me.
"Now will you keep off?" he demanded.
I could hear Charley groan with disappointment. "Keep off," he
whispered; "it's all up for this time."
I put up the tiller and eased the sheet, and the salmon boat ran off
five or six points. Big Alec watched us till we were out of range, when
he returned to his work.
"You'd better leave Big Alec alone," Carmintel said, rather sourly, to
Charley that night.
"So he's been complaining to you, has he?" Charley said significantly.
Carmintel flushed painfully. "You'd better leave him alone, I tell you,"
he repeated. "He's a dangerous man, and it won't pay to fool with him."
"Yes," Charley answered softly; "I've heard that it pays better to leave
him alone."
This was a direct thrust at Carmintel, and we could see by the
expression of his face that it sank home. For it was common knowledge
that Big Alec was as willing to bribe as to fight, and that of late
years more than one patrolman had handled the fisherman's money.
"Do you mean to say--" Carmintel began, in a bullying tone.
But Charley cut him off shortly. "I mean to say nothing," he said. "You
heard what I said, and if the cap fits, why--"
He shrugged his shoulders, and Carmintel glowered at him, speechless.
"What we want is imagination," Charley said to me one day, when we had
attempted to creep upon Big Alec in the gray of dawn and had been shot
at for our trouble.
And thereafter, and for many days, I cudgelled my brains trying to
imagine some possible way by which two men, on an open stretch of water,
could capture another who knew how to use a rifle and was never to be
found without one. Regularly, every slack water, without slyness,
boldly and openly in the broad day, Big Alec was to be seen running his
line. And what made it particularly exasperating was the fact that
every fisherman, from Benicia to Vallejo, knew that he was successfully
defying us. Carmintel also bothered us, for he kept us busy among the
shad-fishers of San Pablo, so that we had little time to spare on the
King of the Greeks. But Charley's wife and children lived at Benicia,
and we had made the place our headquarters, so that we always returned
to it.
"I'll tell you what we can do," I said, after several fruitless weeks
had passed; "we can wait some slack water till Big Alec has run his
line and gone ashore with the fish, and then we can go out and capture
the line. It will put him to time and expense to make another, and then
we'll figure to capture that too. If we can't capture him, we can
discourage him, you see."
Charley saw, and said it wasn't a bad idea. We watched our chance, and
the next low-water slack, after Big Alec had removed the fish from the
line and returned ashore, we went out in the salmon boat. We had the
bearings of the line from shore marks, and we knew we would have no
difficulty in locating it. The first of the flood tide was setting in,
when we ran below where we thought the line was stretched and dropped
over a fishing-boat anchor. Keeping a short rope to the anchor, so that
it barely touched the bottom, we dragged it slowly along until it stuck
and the boat fetched up hard and fast.
"We've got it," Charley cried. "Come on and lend a hand to get it in."
Together we hove up the rope till the anchor came in sight with the
sturgeon line caught across one of the flukes. Scores of the
murderous-looking hooks flashed into sight as we cleared the anchor,
and we had just started to run along the line to the end where we could
begin to lift it, when a sharp thud in the boat startled us. We looked
about, but saw nothing and returned to our work. An instant later there
was a similar sharp thud and the gunwale splintered between Charley's
body and mine.
"That's remarkably like a bullet, lad," he said reflectively. "And it's
a long shot Big Alec's making."
"And he's using smokeless powder," he concluded, after an examination of
the mile-distant shore. "That's why we can't hear the report."
I looked at the shore, but could see no sign of Big Alec, who was
undoubtedly hidden in some rocky nook with us at his mercy. A third
bullet struck the water, glanced, passed singing over our heads, and
struck the water again beyond.
"I guess we'd better get out of this," Charley remarked coolly. "What
do you think, lad?"
I thought so, too, and said we didn't want the line anyway. Whereupon
we cast off and hoisted the spritsail. The bullets ceased at once, and
we sailed away, unpleasantly confident that Big Alec was laughing at our
discomfiture.
And more than that, the next day on the fishing wharf, where we were
inspecting nets, he saw fit to laugh and sneer at us, and this before
all the fishermen. Charley's face went black with anger; but beyond
promising Big Alec that in the end he would surely land him behind the
bars, he controlled himself and said nothing. The King of the Greeks
made his boast that no fish patrol had ever taken him or ever could
take him, and the fishermen cheered him and said it was true. They grew
excited, and it looked like trouble for a while; but Big Alec asserted
his kingship and quelled them.
Carmintel also laughed at Charley, and dropped sarcastic remarks, and
made it hard for him. But Charley refused to be angered, though he told
me in confidence that he intended to capture Big Alec if it took all the
rest of his life to accomplish it.
"I don't know how I'll do it," he said, "but do it I will, as sure as I
am Charley Le Grant. The idea will come to me at the right and proper
time, never fear."
And at the right time it came, and most unexpectedly. Fully a month had
passed, and we were constantly up and down the river, and down and up
the bay, with no spare moments to devote to the particular fisherman
who ran a Chinese line in the bight of Turner's Shipyard. We had called
in at Selby's Smelter one afternoon, while on patrol work, when all
unknown to us our opportunity happened along. It appeared in the guise
of a helpless yacht loaded with seasick people, so we could hardly be
expected to recognize it as the opportunity. It was a large sloop-yacht,
and it was helpless inasmuch as the trade-wind was blowing half a gale
and there were no capable sailors aboard.
[Illustration: "He saw fit to laugh sneer at us, before all the
fishermen."]
From the wharf at Selby's we watched with careless interest the
lubberly manoeuvre performed of bringing the yacht to anchor, and the
equally lubberly manoeuvre of sending the small boat ashore. A very
miserable-looking man in draggled ducks, after nearly swamping the boat
in the heavy seas, passed us the painter and climbed out. He staggered
about as though the wharf were rolling, and told us his troubles, which
were the troubles of the yacht. The only rough-weather sailor aboard,
the man on whom they all depended, had been called back to San
Francisco by a telegram, and they had attempted to continue the cruise
alone. The high wind and big seas of San Pablo Bay had been too much
for them; all hands were sick, nobody knew anything or could do
anything; and so they had run in to the smelter either to desert the
yacht or to get somebody to bring it to Benicia. In short, did we know
of any sailors who would bring the yacht into Benicia?
Charley looked at me. The _Reindeer_ was lying in a snug place. We had
nothing on hand in the way of patrol work till midnight. With the wind
then blowing, we could sail the yacht into Benicia in a couple of
hours, have several more hours ashore, and come back to the smelter on
the evening train.
"All right, captain," Charley said to the disconsolate yachtsman, who
smiled in sickly fashion at the title.
"I'm only the owner," he explained.
We rowed him aboard in much better style than he had come ashore, and
saw for ourselves the helplessness of the passengers. There were a dozen
men and women, and all of them too sick even to appear grateful at our
coming. The yacht was rolling savagely, broad on, and no sooner had the
owner's feet touched the deck than he collapsed and joined the others.
Not one was able to bear a hand, so Charley and I between us cleared the
badly tangled running gear, got up sail, and hoisted anchor.
It was a rough trip, though a swift one. The Carquinez Straits were a
welter of foam and smother, and we came through them wildly before the
wind, the big mainsail alternately dipping and flinging its boom
skyward as we tore along. But the people did not mind. They did not
mind anything. Two or three, including the owner, sprawled in the
cockpit, shuddering when the yacht lifted and raced and sank dizzily
into the trough, and between-whiles regarding the shore with yearning
eyes. The rest were huddled on the cabin floor among the cushions. Now
and again some one groaned, but for the most part they were as limp as
so many dead persons.
As the bight at Turner's Shipyard opened out, Charley edged into it to
get the smoother water. Benicia was in view, and we were bowling along
over comparatively easy water, when a speck of a boat danced up ahead
of us, directly in our course. It was low-water slack. Charley and I
looked at each other. No word was spoken, but at once the yacht began a
most astonishing performance, veering and yawing as though the greenest
of amateurs was at the wheel. It was a sight for sailormen to see. To
all appearances, a runaway yacht was careering madly over the bight,
and now and again yielding a little bit to control in a desperate
effort to make Benicia.
The owner forgot his seasickness long enough to look anxious. The speck
of a boat grew larger and larger, till we could see Big Alec and his
partner, with a turn of the sturgeon line around a cleat, resting from
their labor to laugh at us. Charley pulled his sou'wester over his eyes,
and I followed his example, though I could not guess the idea he
evidently had in mind and intended to carry into execution.
We came foaming down abreast of the skiff, so close that we could hear
above the wind the voices of Big Alec and his mate as they shouted at
us with all the scorn that professional watermen feel for amateurs,
especially when amateurs are making fools of themselves.
We thundered on past the fishermen, and nothing had happened. Charley
grinned at the disappointment he saw in my face, and then shouted:
"Stand by the main-sheet to jibe!"
He put the wheel hard over, and the yacht whirled around obediently.
The main-sheet slacked and dipped, then shot over our heads after the
boom and tautened with a crash on the traveller. The yacht heeled over
almost on her beam ends, and a great wail went up from the seasick
passengers as they swept across the cabin floor in a tangled mass and
piled into a heap in the starboard bunks.
But we had no time for them. The yacht, completing the manoeuvre, headed
into the wind with slatting canvas, and righted to an even keel. We
were still plunging ahead, and directly in our path was the skiff. I
saw Big Alec dive over-board and his mate leap for our bowsprit. Then
came the crash as we struck the boat, and a series of grinding bumps as
it passed under our bottom.
"That fixes his rifle," I heard Charley mutter, as he sprang upon the
deck to look for Big Alec somewhere astern.
The wind and sea quickly stopped our forward movement, and we began to
drift backward over the spot where the skiff had been. Big Alec's black
head and swarthy face popped up within arm's reach; and all
unsuspecting and very angry with what he took to be the clumsiness of
amateur sailors, he was hauled aboard. Also he was out of breath, for
he had dived deep and stayed down long to escape our keel.
The next instant, to the perplexity and consternation of the owner,
Charley was on top of Big Alec in the cockpit, and I was helping bind
him with gaskets. The owner was dancing excitedly about and demanding
an explanation, but by that time Big Alec's partner had crawled aft
from the bowsprit and was peering apprehensively over the rail into the
cockpit. Charley's arm shot around his neck and the man landed on his
back beside Big Alec.
"More gaskets!" Charley shouted, and I made haste to supply them.
The wrecked skiff was rolling sluggishly a short distance to windward,
and I trimmed the sheets while Charley took the wheel and steered for
it.
"These two men are old offenders," he explained to the angry owner;
"and they are most persistent violators of the fish and game laws. You
have seen them caught in the act, and you may expect to be subpoenaed as
witness for the state when the trial comes off."
As he spoke he rounded alongside the skiff. It had been torn from the
line, a section of which was dragging to it. He hauled in forty or
fifty feet with a young sturgeon still fast in a tangle of barbless
hooks, slashed that much of the line free with his knife, and tossed it
into the cockpit beside the prisoners.
"And there's the evidence, Exhibit A, for the people," Charley
continued. "Look it over carefully so that you may identify it in the
court-room with the time and place of capture."
And then, in triumph, with no more veering and yawing, we sailed into
Benicia, the King of the Greeks bound hard and fast in the cockpit, and
for the first time in his life a prisoner of the fish patrol.
III
A RAID ON THE OYSTER
PIRATES
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 growlin' 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?"