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 encyclopaedia 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.
[Illustration: "The Centipede and the Porpoise doubled up on the cabin
in paroxysms of laughter."]
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 unseamanlike 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."
IV
THE SIEGE OF THE "LANCASHIRE QUEEN"
Possibly our most exasperating experience on the fish patrol was when
Charley Le Grant and I laid a two weeks' siege to a big four-masted
English ship. Before we had finished with the affair, it became a
pretty mathematical problem, and it was by the merest chance that we
came into possession of the instrument that brought it to a successful
termination.
After our raid on the oyster pirates we had returned to Oakland, where
two more weeks passed before Neil Partington's wife was out of danger
and on the highroad to recovery. So it was after an absence of a
month, all told, that we turned the _Reindeer's_ nose toward Benicia.
When the cat's away the mice will play, and in these four weeks the
fishermen had become very bold in violating the law. When we passed
Point Pedro we noticed many signs of activity among the
shrimp-catchers, and, well into San Pablo Bay, we observed a widely
scattered fleet of Upper Bay fishing-boats hastily pulling in their
nets and getting up sail.
This was suspicious enough to warrant investigation, and the first and
only boat we succeeded in boarding proved to have an illegal net. The
law permitted no smaller mesh for catching shad than one that measured
seven and one-half inches inside the knots, while the mesh of this
particular net measured only three inches. It was a flagrant breach of
the rules, and the two fishermen were forthwith put under arrest.
Neil Partington took one of them with him to help manage the
_Reindeer_, while Charley and I went on ahead with the other in the
captured boat.
But the shad fleet had headed over toward the Petaluma shore in wild
flight, and for the rest of the run through San Pablo Bay we saw no
more fishermen at all. Our prisoner, a bronzed and bearded Greek, sat
sullenly on his net while we sailed his craft. It was a new Columbia
River salmon boat, evidently on its first trip, and it handled
splendidly. Even when Charley praised it, our prisoner refused to
speak or to notice us, and we soon gave him up as a most unsociable
fellow.
We ran up the Carquinez Straits and edged into the bight at Turner's
Shipyard for smoother water. Here were lying several English steel
sailing ships, waiting for the wheat harvest; and here, most
unexpectedly, in the precise place where we had captured Big Alec, we
came upon two Italians in a skiff that was loaded with a complete
"Chinese" sturgeon line. The surprise was mutual, and we were on top
of them before either they or we were aware. Charley had barely time
to luff into the wind and run up to them. I ran forward and tossed
them a line with orders to make it fast. One of the Italians took a
turn with it over a cleat, while I hastened to lower our big
spritsail. This accomplished, the salmon boat dropped astern, dragging
heavily on the skiff.
Charley came forward to board the prize, but when I proceeded to haul
alongside by means of the line, the Italians cast it off. We at once
began drifting to leeward, while they got out two pairs of oars and
rowed their light craft directly into the wind. This manoeuvre for the
moment disconcerted us, for in our large and heavily loaded boat we
could not hope to catch them with the oars. But our prisoner came
unexpectedly to our aid. His black eyes were flashing eagerly, and his
face was flushed with suppressed excitement, as he dropped the
centreboard, sprang forward with a single leap, and put up the sail.
"I've always heard that Greeks don't like Italians," Charley laughed,
as he ran aft to the tiller.
And never in my experience have I seen a man so anxious for the
capture of another as was our prisoner in the chase that followed. His
eyes fairly snapped, and his nostrils quivered and dilated in a most
extraordinary way. Charley steered while he tended the sheet; and
though Charley was as quick and alert as a cat, the Greek could
hardly control his impatience.
The Italians were cut off from the shore, which was fully a mile away
at its nearest point. Did they attempt to make it, we could haul after
them with the wind abeam, and overtake them before they had covered an
eighth of the distance. But they were too wise to attempt it,
contenting themselves with rowing lustily to windward along the
starboard side of a big ship, the _Lancashire Queen_. But beyond the
ship lay an open stretch of fully two miles to the shore in that
direction. This, also, they dared not attempt, for we were bound to
catch them before they could cover it. So, when they reached the bow
of the _Lancashire Queen_, nothing remained but to pass around and row
down her port side toward the stern, which meant rowing to leeward and
giving us the advantage.