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