crossed the ship's bow. Then Charley put up the tiller and headed down
the port side of the ship, the Greek letting out the sheet and
grinning with delight. The Italians were already half-way down the
ship's length; but the stiff breeze at our back drove us after them
far faster than they could row. Closer and closer we came, and I,
lying down forward, was just reaching out to grasp the skiff, when it
ducked under the great stern of the _Lancashire Queen_.
The chase was virtually where it had begun. The Italians were rowing
up the starboard side of the ship, and we were hauled close on the
wind and slowly edging out from the ship as we worked to windward.
Then they darted around her bow and began the row down her port side,
and we tacked about, crossed her bow, and went plunging down the wind
hot after them. And again, just as I was reaching for the skiff, it
ducked under the ship's stern and out of danger. And so it went,
around and around, the skiff each time just barely ducking into
safety.
By this time the ship's crew had become aware of what was taking
place, and we could see their heads in a long row as they looked at us
over the bulwarks. Each time we missed the skiff at the stern, they
set up a wild cheer and dashed across to the other side of the
_Lancashire Queen_ to see the chase to windward. They showered us and
the Italians with jokes and advice, and made our Greek so angry that
at least once on each circuit he raised his fist and shook it at them
in a rage. They came to look for this, and at each display greeted it
with uproarious mirth.
"Wot a circus!" cried one.
"Tork about yer marine hippodromes,--if this ain't one, I'd like to
know!" affirmed another.
"Six-days-go-as-yer-please," announced a third. "Who says the dagoes
won't win?"
On the next tack to windward the Greek offered to change places with
Charley.
"Let-a me sail-a de boat," he demanded. "I fix-a them, I catch-a them,
sure."
This was a stroke at Charley's professional pride, for pride himself
he did upon his boat-sailing abilities; but he yielded the tiller to
the prisoner and took his place at the sheet. Three times again we
made the circuit, and the Greek found that he could get no more speed
out of the salmon boat than Charley had.
"Better give it up," one of the sailors advised from above.
The Greek scowled ferociously and shook his fist in his customary
fashion. In the meanwhile my mind had not been idle, and I had finally
evolved an idea.
"Keep going, Charley, one time more," I said.
And as we laid out on the next tack to windward, I bent a piece of
line to a small grappling hook I had seen lying in the bail-hole. The
end of the line I made fast to the ring-bolt in the bow, and with the
hook out of sight I waited for the next opportunity to use it. Once
more they made their leeward pull down the port side of the
_Lancashire Queen_, and more once we churned down after them before
the wind. Nearer and nearer we drew, and I was making believe to reach
for them as before. The stern of the skiff was not six feet away, and
they were laughing at me derisively as they ducked under the ship's
stern. At that instant I suddenly arose and threw the grappling iron.
It caught fairly and squarely on the rail of the skiff, which was
jerked backward out of safety as the rope tautened and the salmon boat
ploughed on.
A groan went up from the row of sailors above, which quickly changed
to a cheer as one of the Italians whipped out a long sheath-knife and
cut the rope. But we had drawn them out of safety, and Charley, from
his place in the stern-sheets, reached over and clutched the stern of
the skiff. The whole thing happened in a second of time, for the first
Italian was cutting the rope and Charley was clutching the skiff, when
the second Italian dealt him a rap over the head with an oar. Charley
released his hold and collapsed, stunned, into the bottom of the
salmon boat, and the Italians bent to their oars and escaped back
under the ship's stern.
The Greek took both tiller and sheet and continued the chase around
the _Lancashire Queen_, while I attended to Charley, on whose head a
nasty lump was rapidly rising. Our sailor audience was wild with
delight, and to a man encouraged the fleeing Italians. Charley sat up,
with one hand on his head, and gazed about him sheepishly.
"It will never do to let them escape now," he said, at the same time
drawing his revolver.
On our next circuit, he threatened the Italians with the weapon; but
they rowed on stolidly, keeping splendid stroke and utterly
disregarding him.
"If you don't stop, I'll shoot," Charley said menacingly.
[Illustration: "I suddenly arose and threw the grappling iron."]
But this had no effect, nor were they to be frightened into
surrendering even when he fired several shots dangerously close to
them. It was too much to expect him to shoot unarmed men, and this
they knew as well as we did; so they continued to pull doggedly round
and round the ship.
"We'll run them down, then!" Charley exclaimed. "We'll wear them out
and wind them!"
So the chase continued. Twenty times more we ran them around the
_Lancashire Queen_, and at last we could see that even their iron
muscles were giving out. They were nearly exhausted, and it was only a
matter of a few more circuits, when the game took on a new feature. On
the row to windward they always gained on us, so that they were
half-way down the ship's side on the row to leeward when we were
passing the bow. But this last time, as we passed the bow, we saw them
escaping up the ship's gangway, which had been suddenly lowered. It
was an organized move on the part of the sailors, evidently
countenanced by the captain; for by the time we arrived where the
gangway had been, it was being hoisted up, and the skiff, slung in the
ship's davits, was likewise flying aloft out of reach.
The parley that followed with the captain was short and snappy. He
absolutely forbade us to board the _Lancashire Queen_, and as
absolutely refused to give up the two men. By this time Charley was as
enraged as the Greek. Not only had he been foiled in a long and
ridiculous chase, but he had been knocked senseless into the bottom of
his boat by the men who had escaped him.
"Knock off my head with little apples," he declared emphatically,
striking the fist of one hand into the palm of the other, "if those
two men ever escape me! I'll stay here to get them if it takes the
rest of my natural life, and if I don't get them, then I promise you
I'll live unnaturally long or until I do get them, or my name's not
Charley Le Grant!"
And then began the siege of the _Lancashire Queen_, a siege memorable
in the annals of both fishermen and fish patrol. When the _Reindeer_
came along, after a fruitless pursuit of the shad fleet, Charley
instructed Neil Partington to send out his own salmon boat, with
blankets, provisions, and a fisherman's charcoal stove. By sunset this
exchange of boats was made, and we said good-by to our Greek, who
perforce had to go into Benicia and be locked up for his own
violation of the law. After supper, Charley and I kept alternate
four-hour watches till daylight. The fishermen made no attempt to
escape that night, though the ship sent out a boat for scouting
purposes to find if the coast were clear.
By the next day we saw that a steady siege was in order, and we
perfected our plans with an eye to our own comfort. A dock, known as
the Solano Wharf, which ran out from the Benicia shore, helped us in
this. It happened that the _Lancashire Queen_, the shore at Turner's
Shipyard, and the Solano Wharf were the corners of a big equilateral
triangle. From ship to shore, the side of the triangle along which the
Italians had to escape, was a distance equal to that from the Solano
Wharf to the shore, the side of the triangle along which we had to
travel to get to the shore before the Italians. But as we could sail
much faster than they could row, we could permit them to travel about
half their side of the triangle before we darted out along our side.
If we allowed them to get more than half-way, they were certain to
beat us to shore; while if we started before they were half-way, they
were equally certain to beat us back to the ship.
We found that an imaginary line, drawn from the end of the wharf to a
windmill farther along the shore, cut precisely in half the line of
the triangle along which the Italians must escape to reach the land.
This line made it easy for us to determine how far to let them run
away before we bestirred ourselves in pursuit. Day after day we would
watch them through our glasses as they rowed leisurely along toward
the half-way point; and as they drew close into line with the
windmill, we would leap into the boat and get up sail. At sight of our
preparation, they would turn and row slowly back to the _Lancashire
Queen_, secure in the knowledge that we could not overtake them.
To guard against calms--when our salmon boat would be useless--we also
had in readiness a light rowing skiff equipped with spoon-oars. But at
such times, when the wind failed us, we were forced to row out from
the wharf as soon as they rowed from the ship. In the night-time, on
the other hand, we were compelled to patrol the immediate vicinity of
the ship; which we did, Charley and I standing four-hour watches turn
and turn about. The Italians, however, preferred the daytime in which
to escape, and so our long night vigils were without result.
"What makes me mad," said Charley, "is our being kept from our honest
beds while those rascally lawbreakers are sleeping soundly every
night. But much good may it do them," he threatened. "I'll keep them
on that ship till the captain charges them board, as sure as a
sturgeon's not a catfish!"
It was a tantalizing problem that confronted us. As long as we were
vigilant, they could not escape; and as long as they were careful, we
would be unable to catch them. Charley cudgelled his brains
continually, but for once his imagination failed him. It was a problem
apparently without other solution than that of patience. It was a
waiting game, and whichever waited the longer was bound to win. To add
to our irritation, friends of the Italians established a code of
signals with them from the shore, so that we never dared relax the
siege for a moment. And besides this, there were always one or two
suspicious-looking fishermen hanging around the Solano Wharf and
keeping watch on our actions. We could do nothing but "grin and bear
it," as Charley said, while it took up all our time and prevented us
from doing other work.
The days went by, and there was no change in the situation. Not that
no attempts were made to change it. One night friends from the shore
came out in a skiff and attempted to confuse us while the two Italians
escaped. That they did not succeed was due to the lack of a little oil
on the ship's davits. For we were drawn back from the pursuit of the
strange boat by the creaking of the davits, and arrived at the
_Lancashire Queen_ just as the Italians were lowering their skiff.
Another night, fully half a dozen skiffs rowed around us in the
darkness, but we held on like a leech to the side of the ship and
frustrated their plan till they grew angry and showered us with abuse.
Charley laughed to himself in the bottom of the boat.
"It's a good sign, lad," he said to me. "When men begin to abuse, make
sure they're losing patience; and shortly after they lose patience,
they lose their heads. Mark my words, if we only hold out, they'll get
careless some fine day, and then we'll get them."
But they did not grow careless, and Charley confessed that this was
one of the times when all signs failed. Their patience seemed equal to
ours, and the second week of the siege dragged monotonously along.
Then Charley's lagging imagination quickened sufficiently to suggest
a ruse. Peter Boyelen, a new patrolman and one unknown to the
fisher-folk, happened to arrive in Benicia, and we took him into our
plan. We were as secret as possible about it, but in some unfathomable
way the friends ashore got word to the beleaguered Italians to keep
their eyes open.
On the night we were to put our ruse into effect, Charley and I took
up our usual station in our rowing skiff alongside the _Lancashire
Queen_. After it was thoroughly dark, Peter Boyelen came out in a
crazy duck boat, the kind you can pick up and carry away under one
arm. When we heard him coming along, paddling noisily, we slipped away
a short distance into the darkness and rested on our oars. Opposite
the gangway, having jovially hailed the anchor-watch of the
_Lancashire Queen_ and asked the direction of the _Scottish Chiefs_,
another wheat ship, he awkwardly capsized himself. The man who was
standing the anchor-watch ran down the gangway and hauled him out of
the water. This was what he wanted, to get aboard the ship; and the
next thing he expected was to be taken on deck and then below to warm
up and dry out. But the captain inhospitably kept him perched on the
lowest gangway step, shivering miserably and with his feet dangling in
the water, till we, out of very pity, rowed in from the darkness and
took him off. The jokes and gibes of the awakened crew sounded
anything but sweet in our ears, and even the two Italians climbed up
on the rail and laughed down at us long and maliciously.
"That's all right," Charley said in a low voice, which I only could
hear. "I'm mighty glad it's not us that's laughing first. We'll save
our laugh to the end, eh, lad?"
He clapped a hand on my shoulder as he finished, but it seemed to me
that there was more determination than hope in his voice.
It would have been possible for us to secure the aid of United States
marshals and board the English ship, backed by government authority.
But the instructions of the Fish Commission were to the effect that
the patrolmen should avoid complications, and this one, did we call on
the higher powers, might well end in a pretty international tangle.
The second week of the siege drew to its close, and there was no sign
of change in the situation. On the morning of the fourteenth day the
change came, and it came in a guise as unexpected and startling to us
as it was to the men we were striving to capture.
Charley and I, after our customary night vigil by the side of the
_Lancashire Queen_, rowed into the Solano Wharf.
"Hello!" cried Charley, in surprise. "In the name of reason and common
sense, what is that? Of all unmannerly craft did you ever see the
like?"
Well might he exclaim, for there, tied up to the dock, lay the
strangest-looking launch I had ever seen. Not that it could be called
a launch, either, but it seemed to resemble a launch more than any
other kind of boat. It was seventy feet long, but so narrow was it,
and so bare of superstructure, that it appeared much smaller than it
really was. It was built wholly of steel, and was painted black. Three
smokestacks, a good distance apart and raking well aft, arose in
single file amidships; while the bow, long and lean and sharp as a
knife, plainly advertised that the boat was made for speed. Passing
under the stern, we read _Streak_, painted in small white letters.
Charley and I were consumed with curiosity. In a few minutes we were
on board and talking with an engineer who was watching the sunrise
from the deck. He was quite willing to satisfy our curiosity, and in a
few minutes we learned that the _Streak_ had come in after dark from
San Francisco; that this was what might be called the trial trip; and
that she was the property of Silas Tate, a young mining millionaire of
California, whose fad was high-speed yachts. There was some talk about
turbine engines, direct application of steam, and the absence of
pistons, rods, and cranks,--all of which was beyond me, for I was
familiar only with sailing craft; but I did understand the last words
of the engineer.
"Four thousand horse-power and forty-five miles an hour, though you
wouldn't think it," he concluded proudly.
"Say it again, man! Say it again!" Charley exclaimed in an excited
voice.
"Four thousand horse-power and forty-five miles an hour," the engineer
repeated, grinning good-naturedly.
"Where's the owner?" was Charley's next question. "Is there any way I
can speak to him?"
The engineer shook his head. "No, I'm afraid not. He's asleep, you
see."
At that moment a young man in blue uniform came on deck farther aft
and stood regarding the sunrise.
"There he is, that's him, that's Mr. Tate," said the engineer.
Charley walked aft and spoke to him, and while he talked earnestly the
young man listened with an amused expression on his face. He must have
inquired about the depth of water close in to the shore at Turner's
Shipyard, for I could see Charley making gestures and explaining. A
few minutes later he came back in high glee.
"Come on, lad," he said. "On to the dock with you. We've got them!"
It was our good fortune to leave the _Streak_ when we did, for a
little later one of the spy fishermen appeared. Charley and I took up
our accustomed places, on the stringer-piece, a little ahead of the
_Streak_ and over our own boat, where we could comfortably watch the
_Lancashire Queen_. Nothing occurred till about nine o'clock, when we
saw the two Italians leave the ship and pull along their side of the
triangle toward the shore. Charley looked as unconcerned as could be,
but before they had covered a quarter of the distance, he whispered to
me:
"Forty-five miles an hour...nothing can save them...they are ours!"
Slowly the two men rowed along till they were nearly in line with the
windmill. This was the point where we always jumped into our salmon
boat and got up the sail, and the two men, evidently expecting it,
seemed surprised when we gave no sign.
When they were directly in line with the windmill, as near to the
shore as to the ship, and nearer the shore than we had ever allowed
them before, they grew suspicious. We followed them through the
glasses, and saw them standing up in the skiff and trying to find out
what we were doing. The spy fisherman, sitting beside us on the
stringerpiece, was likewise puzzled. He could not understand our
inactivity. The men in the skiff rowed nearer the shore, but stood up
again and scanned it, as if they thought we might be in hiding there.
But a man came out on the beach and waved a handkerchief to indicate
that the coast was clear. That settled them. They bent to the oars to
make a dash for it. Still Charley waited. Not until they had covered
three-quarters of the distance from the _Lancashire Queen_, which left
them hardly more than a quarter of a mile to gain the shore, did
Charley slap me on the shoulder and cry:
"They're ours! They're ours!"
We ran the few steps to the side of the _Streak_ and jumped aboard.
Stern and bow lines were cast off in a jiffy. The _Streak_ shot ahead
and away from the wharf. The spy fisherman we had left behind on the
stringer-piece pulled out a revolver and fired five shots into the air
in rapid succession. The men in the skiff gave instant heed to the
warning, for we could see them pulling away like mad.
But if they pulled like mad, I wonder how our progress can be
described? We fairly flew. So frightful was the speed with which we
displaced the water, that a wave rose up on either side our bow and
foamed aft in a series of three stiff, up-standing waves, while astern
a great crested billow pursued us hungrily, as though at each moment
it would fall aboard and destroy us. The _Streak_ was pulsing and
vibrating and roaring like a thing alive. The wind of our progress was
like a gale--a forty-five-mile gale. We could not face it and draw
breath without choking and strangling. It blew the smoke straight
back from the mouths of the smoke-stacks at a direct right angle to
the perpendicular. In fact, we were travelling as fast as an express
train. "We just _streaked_ it," was the way Charley told it afterward,
and I think his description comes nearer than any I can give.
As for the Italians in the skiff--hardly had we started, it seemed to
me, when we were on top of them. Naturally, we had to slow down long
before we got to them; but even then we shot past like a whirlwind and
were compelled to circle back between them and the shore. They had
rowed steadily, rising from the thwarts at every stroke, up to the
moment we passed them, when they recognized Charley and me. That took
the last bit of fight out of them. They hauled in their oars and
sullenly submitted to arrest.
"Well, Charley," Neil Partington said, as we discussed it on the wharf
afterward, "I fail to see where your boasted imagination came into
play this time."
But Charley was true to his hobby. "Imagination?" he demanded,
pointing to the _Streak_. "Look at that! Just look at it! If the
invention of that isn't imagination, I should like to know what is."
"Of course," he added, "it's the other fellow's imagination, but it
did the work all the same."
V
CHARLEY'S COUP
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 haven't 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.