hoisted the _Reindeer's_ big mainsail and cast off. It was tantalizing
fall weather. The sea-breeze, which had blown steadily all summer, was
gone, and in its place were capricious winds and murky skies which
made the time of arriving anywhere extremely problematical. We started
on the first of the ebb, and as we slipped down the Carquinez Straits,
I looked my last for some time upon Benicia and the bight at Turner's
Shipyard, where we had besieged the _Lancashire Queen_, and had
captured Big Alec, the King of the Greeks. And at the mouth of the
Straits I looked with not a little interest upon the spot where a few
days before I should have drowned but for the good that was in the
nature of Demetrios Contos.
A great wall of fog advanced across San Pablo Bay to meet us, and in a
few minutes the _Reindeer_ was running blindly through the damp
obscurity. Charley, who was steering, seemed to have an instinct for
that kind of work. How he did it, he himself confessed that he did not
know; but he had a way of calculating winds, currents, distance, time,
drift, and sailing speed that was truly marvellous.
"It looks as though it were lifting," Neil Partington said, a couple
of hours after we had entered the fog. "Where do you say we are,
Charley?"
Charley looked at his watch. "Six o'clock, and three hours more of
ebb," he remarked casually.
"But where do you say we are?" Neil insisted.
Charley pondered a moment, and then answered, "The tide has edged us
over a bit out of our course, but if the fog lifts right now, as it is
going to lift, you'll find we're not more than a thousand miles off
McNear's Landing."
"You might be a little more definite by a few miles, anyway," Neil
grumbled, showing by his tone that he disagreed.
"All right, then," Charley said, conclusively, "not less than a
quarter of a mile, not more than a half."
The wind freshened with a couple of little puffs, and the fog thinned
perceptibly.
"McNear's is right off there," Charley said, pointing directly into
the fog on our weather beam.
The three of us were peering intently in that direction, when the
_Reindeer_ struck with a dull crash and came to a standstill. We ran
forward, and found her bowsprit entangled in the tanned rigging of a
short, chunky mast. She had collided, head on, with a Chinese junk
lying at anchor.
At the moment we arrived forward, five Chinese, like so many bees,
came swarming out of the little 'tween-decks cabin, the sleep still in
their eyes.
Leading them came a big, muscular man, conspicuous for his pock-marked
face and the yellow silk handkerchief swathed about his head. It was
Yellow Handkerchief, the Chinaman whom we had arrested for illegal
shrimp-fishing the year before, and who, at that time, had nearly sunk
the _Reindeer_, as he had nearly sunk it now by violating the rules of
navigation.
"What d'ye mean, you yellow-faced heathen, lying here in a fairway
without a horn a-going?" Charley cried hotly.
"Mean?" Neil calmly answered. "Just take a look--that's what he
means."
Our eyes followed the direction indicated by Neil's finger, and we saw
the open amid-ships of the junk, half filled, as we found on closer
examination, with fresh-caught shrimps. Mingled with the shrimps were
myriads of small fish, from a quarter of an inch upwards in size.
Yellow Handkerchief had lifted the trap-net at high-water slack, and,
taking advantage of the concealment offered by the fog, had boldly
been lying by, waiting to lift the net again at low-water slack.
"Well," Neil hummed and hawed, "in all my varied and extensive
experience as a fish patrolman, I must say this is the easiest capture
I ever made. What'll we do with them, Charley?"
"Tow the junk into San Rafael, of course," came the answer. Charley
turned to me. "You stand by the junk, lad, and I'll pass you a towing
line. If the wind doesn't fail us, we'll make the creek before the
tide gets too low, sleep at San Rafael, and arrive in Oakland
to-morrow by midday."
So saying, Charley and Neil returned to the _Reindeer_ and got under
way, the junk towing astern. I went aft and took charge of the prize,
steering by means of an antiquated tiller and a rudder with large,
diamond-shaped holes, through which the water rushed back and forth.
By now the last of the fog had vanished, and Charley's estimate of our
position was confirmed by the sight of McNear's Landing a short
half-mile away. Following along the west shore, we rounded Point Pedro
in plain view of the Chinese shrimp villages, and a great to-do was
raised when they saw one of their junks towing behind the familiar
fish patrol sloop.
The wind, coming off the land, was rather puffy and uncertain, and it
would have been more to our advantage had it been stronger. San Rafael
Creek, up which we had to go to reach the town, and turn over our
prisoners to the authorities, ran through wide-stretching marshes, and
was difficult to navigate on a falling tide, while at low tide it was
impossible to navigate at all. So, with the tide already half-ebbed,
it was necessary for us to make time. This the heavy junk prevented
lumbering along behind and holding the _Reindeer_ back by just so much
dead weight.
"Tell those coolies to get up that sail" Charley finally called to me.
"We don't want to hang up on the mud flats for the rest of the night."
I repeated the order to Yellow Handkerchief, who mumbled it huskily to
his men. He was suffering from a bad cold, which doubled him up in
convulsive coughing spells and made his eyes heavy and bloodshot. This
made him more evil-looking than ever, and when he glared viciously at
me, I remembered with a shiver the close shave I had had with him at
the time of his previous arrest.
His crew sullenly tailed on to the halyards, and the strange,
outlandish sail, lateen in rig and dyed a warm brown, rose in the air.
We were sailing on the wind, and when Yellow Handkerchief flattened
down the sheet the junk forged ahead and the tow-line went slack. Fast
as the _Reindeer_ could sail, the junk outsailed her; and to avoid
running her down I hauled a little closer on the wind. But the junk
likewise outpointed, and in a couple of minutes I was abreast of the
_Reindeer_ and to windward. The tow-line had now tautened, at right
angles to the two boats and the predicament was laughable.
"Cast off!" I shouted.
Charley hesitated.
"It's all right," I added. "Nothing can happen. We'll make the creek on
this tack, and you'll be right behind me all the way up to San
Rafael."
At this Charley cast off, and Yellow Handkerchief sent one of his men
forward to haul in the line. In the gathering darkness I could just
make out the mouth of San Rafael Creek, and by the time we entered it
I could barely see its banks. The _Reindeer_ was fully five minutes
astern, and we continued to leave her astern as we beat up the narrow,
winding channel. With Charley behind us, it seemed I had little to
fear from my five prisoners; but the darkness prevented my keeping a
sharp eye on them, so I transferred my revolver from my trousers
pocket to the side pocket of my coat, where I could more quickly put
my hand on it.
Yellow Handkerchief was the one I feared, and that he knew it and made
use of it, subsequent events will show. He was sitting a few feet away
from me, on what then happened to be the weather side of the junk. I
could scarcely see the outlines of his form, but I soon became
convinced that he was slowly, very slowly, edging closer to me. I
watched him carefully. Steering with my left hand, I slipped my right
into my pocket and got hold of the revolver.
I saw him shift along for a couple of inches, and I was just about to
order him back--the words were trembling on the tip of my tongue--when
I was struck with great force by a heavy figure that had leaped
through the air upon me from the lee side. It was one of the crew. He
pinioned my right arm so that I could not withdraw my hand from my
pocket, and at the same time clapped his other hand over my mouth. Of
course, I could have struggled away from him and freed my hand or
gotten my mouth clear so that I might cry an alarm, but in a trice
Yellow Handkerchief was on top of me.
I struggled around to no purpose in the bottom of the junk, while my
legs and arms were tied and my mouth securely bound in what I
afterward found out to be a cotton shirt. Then I was left lying in the
bottom. Yellow Handkerchief took the tiller, issuing his orders in
whispers; and from our position at the time, and from the alteration
of the sail, which I could dimly make out above me as a blot against
the stars, I knew the junk was being headed into the mouth of a small
slough which emptied at that point into San Rafael Creek.
In a couple of minutes we ran softly alongside the bank, and the sail
was silently lowered. The Chinese kept very quiet. Yellow Handkerchief
sat down in the bottom alongside of me, and I could feel him straining
to repress his raspy, hacking cough. Possibly seven or eight minutes
later I heard Charley's voice as the _Reindeer_ went past the mouth of
the slough.
"I can't tell you how relieved I am," I could plainly hear him saying
to Neil, "that the lad has finished with the fish patrol without
accident."
Here Neil said something which I could not catch, and then Charley's
voice went on:
"The youngster takes naturally to the water, and if, when he finishes
high school, he takes a course in navigation and goes deep sea, I see
no reason why he shouldn't rise to be master of the finest and biggest
ship afloat."
It was all very flattering to me, but lying there, bound and gagged by
my own prisoners, with the voices growing faint and fainter as the
_Reindeer_ slipped on through the darkness toward San Rafael, I must
say I was not in quite the proper situation to enjoy my smiling
future. With the _Reindeer_ went my last hope. What was to happen next
I could not imagine, for the Chinese were a different race from mine,
and from what I knew I was confident that fair play was no part of
their make-up.
After waiting a few minutes longer, the crew hoisted the lateen sail,
and Yellow Handkerchief steered down toward the mouth of San Rafael
Creek. The tide was getting lower, and he had difficulty in escaping
the mud-banks. I was hoping he would run aground, but he succeeded in
making the Bay without accident.
As we passed out of the creek a noisy discussion arose, which I knew
related to me. Yellow Handkerchief was vehement, but the other four as
vehemently opposed him. It was very evident that he advocated doing
away with me and they were afraid of the consequences. I was familiar
enough with the Chinese character to know that fear alone restrained
them. But what plan they offered in place of Yellow Handkerchief's
murderous one, I could not make out.
My feelings, as my fate hung in the balance, may be guessed. The
discussion developed into a quarrel, in the midst of which Yellow
Handkerchief unshipped the heavy tiller and sprang toward me. But his
four companions threw themselves between, and a clumsy struggle took
place for possession of the tiller. In the end Yellow Handkerchief was
over-come, and sullenly returned to the steering, while they soundly
berated him for his rashness.
Not long after, the sail was run down and the junk slowly urged
forward by means of the sweeps. I felt it ground gently on the soft
mud. Three of the Chinese--they all wore long sea-boots--got over the
side, and the other two passed me across the rail. With Yellow
Handkerchief at my legs and his two companions at my shoulders, they
began to flounder along through the mud. After some time their feet
struck firmer footing, and I knew they were carrying me up some beach.
The location of this beach was not doubtful in my mind. It could be
none other than one of the Marin Islands, a group of rocky islets
which lay off the Marin County shore.
When they reached the firm sand that marked high tide, I was dropped,
and none too gently. Yellow Handkerchief kicked me spitefully in the
ribs, and then the trio floundered back through the mud to the junk. A
moment later I heard the sail go up and slat in the wind as they drew
in the sheet. Then silence fell, and I was left to my own devices for
getting free.
I remembered having seen tricksters writhe and squirm out of ropes
with which they were bound, but though I writhed and squirmed like a
good fellow, the knots remained as hard as ever, and there was no
appreciable slack. In the course of my squirming, however, I rolled
over upon a heap of clam-shells--the remains, evidently, of some
yachting party's clam-bake. This gave me an idea. My hands were tied
behind my back; and, clutching a shell in them, I rolled over and
over, up the beach, till I came to the rocks I knew to be there.
Rolling about and searching, I finally discovered a narrow crevice,
into which I shoved the shell. The edge of it was sharp, and across
the sharp edge I proceeded to saw the rope that bound my wrists. The
edge of the shell was also brittle, and I broke it by bearing too
heavily upon it. Then I rolled back to the heap and returned with as
many shells as I could carry in both hands. I broke many shells, cut
my hands a number of times, and got cramps in my legs from my strained
position and my exertions.
While I was suffering from the cramps, and resting, I heard the
familiar halloo drift across the water. It was Charley, searching for
me. The gag in my mouth prevented me from replying, and I could only
lie there, helplessly fuming, while he rowed past the island and his
voice slowly lost itself in the distance.
I returned to the sawing process, and at the end of half an hour
succeeded in severing the rope. The rest was easy. My hands once free,
it was a matter of minutes to loosen my legs and to take the gag out
of my mouth. I ran around the island to make sure it _was_ an island
and not by chance a portion of the mainland. An island it certainly
was, one of the Marin group, fringed with a sandy beach and surrounded
by a sea of mud. Nothing remained but to wait till daylight and to
keep warm; for it was a cold, raw night for California, with just
enough wind to pierce the skin and cause one to shiver.
To keep up the circulation, I ran around the island a dozen times or
so, and clambered across its rocky backbone as many times more--all of
which was of greater service to me, as I afterward discovered, than
merely to warm me up. In the midst of this exercise I wondered if I
had lost anything out of my pockets while rolling over and over in the
sand. A search showed the absence of my revolver and pocket-knife. The
first Yellow Handkerchief had taken; but the knife had been lost in
the sand.
I was hunting for it when the sound of rowlocks came to my ears. At
first, of course, I thought of Charley; but on second thought I knew
Charley would be calling out as he rowed along. A sudden premonition
of danger seized me. The Marin Islands are lonely places; chance
visitors in the dead of night are hardly to be expected. What if it
were Yellow Handkerchief? The sound made by the rowlocks grew more
distinct. I crouched in the sand and listened intently. The boat,
which I judged a small skiff from the quick stroke of the oars, was
landing in the mud about fifty yards up the beach. I heard a raspy,
hacking cough, and my heart stood still. It was Yellow Handkerchief.
Not to be robbed of his revenge by his more cautious companions, he
had stolen away from the village and come back alone.
I did some swift thinking. I was unarmed and helpless on a tiny islet,
and a yellow barbarian, whom I had reason to fear, was coming after
me. Any place was safer than the island, and I turned immediately to
the water, or rather to the mud. As he began to flounder ashore
through the mud. I started to flounder out into it, going over the
same course which the Chinese had taken in landing me and in returning
to the junk.
Yellow Handkerchief, believing me to be lying tightly bound, exercised
no care, but came ashore noisily. This helped me, for, under the
shield of his noise and making no more myself than necessary, I
managed to cover fifty feet by the time he had made the beach. Here I
lay down in the mud. It was cold and clammy, and made me shiver, but I
did not care to stand up and run the risk of being discovered by his
sharp eyes.
He walked down the beach straight to where he had left me lying, and I
had a fleeting feeling of regret at not being able to see his surprise
when he did not find me. But it was a very fleeting regret, for my
teeth were chattering with the cold.
What his movements were after that I had largely to deduce from the
facts of the situation, for I could scarcely see him in the dim
starlight. But I was sure that the first thing he did was to make the
circuit of the beach to learn if landings had been made by other
boats. This he would have known at once by the tracks through the mud.
Convinced that no boat had removed me from the island, he next started
to find out what had become of me. Beginning at the pile of
clam-shells, he lighted matches to trace my tracks in the sand. At
such times I could see his villanous face plainly, and, when the
sulphur from the matches irritated his lungs, between the raspy cough
that followed and the clammy mud in which I was lying, I confess I
shivered harder than ever.
The multiplicity of my footprints puzzled him. Then the idea that I
might be out in the mud must have struck him, for he waded out a few
yards in my direction, and, stooping, with his eyes searched the dim
surface long and carefully. He could not have been more than fifteen
feet from me, and had he lighted a match he would surely have
discovered me.
He returned to the beach and clambered about over the rocky backbone,
again hunting for me with lighted matches. The closeness of the shore
impelled me to further flight. Not daring to wade upright, on account
of the noise made by floundering and by the suck of the mud, I
remained lying down in the mud and propelled myself over its surface
by means of my hands. Still keeping the trail made by the Chinese in
going from and to the junk, I held on until I had reached the water.
Into this I waded to a depth of three feet, and then I turned off to
the side on a line parallel with the beach.
The thought came to me of going toward Yellow Handkerchief's skiff and
escaping in it, but at that very moment he returned to the beach, and,
as though fearing the very thing I had in mind, he slushed out through
the mud to assure himself that the skiff was safe. This turned me in
the opposite direction. Half swimming, half wading, with my head just
out of water and avoiding splashing. I succeeded in putting about a
hundred feet between myself and the spot ashore where the Chinese had
begun to wade ashore from the junk. I drew myself out on the mud and
remained lying flat.
Again Yellow Handkerchief returned to the beach and made a search of
the island, and again he returned to the heap of clam-shells. I knew
what was running in his mind as well as he did himself. No one could
leave or land without making tracks in the mud. The only tracks to be
seen were those leading from his skiff and from where the junk had
been. I was not on the island. I must have left it by one or other of
those two tracks. He had just been over the one to his skiff, and was
certain I had not left that way. Therefore I could have left the
island only by going over the tracks of the junk landing. This he
proceeded to verify by wading out over them himself, lighting matches
as he came along.
When he arrived at the point where I had first lain, I knew, by the
matches he burned and the time he took, that he had discovered the
marks left by my body. These he followed straight to the water and
into it, but in three feet of water he could no longer see them. On
the other hand, as the tide was still falling, he could easily make
out the impression made by the junk's bow, and could have likewise
made out the impression of any other boat if it had landed at that
particular spot. But there was no such mark; and I knew that he was
absolutely convinced that I was hiding somewhere in the mud.
But to hunt on a dark night for a boy in a sea of mud would be like
hunting for a needle in a haystack, and he did not attempt it. Instead
he went back to the beach and prowled around for some time. I was
hoping he would give up and go, for by this time I was suffering
severely from the cold. At last he waded out to his skiff and rowed
away. What if this departure of Yellow Handkerchief's were a sham?
What if he had done it merely to entice me ashore?
The more I thought of it the more certain I became that he had made a
little too much noise with his oars as he rowed away. So I remained,
lying in the mud and shivering. I shivered till the muscles of the
small of my back ached and pained me as badly as the cold, and I had
need of all my self-control to force myself to remain in my miserable
situation.
It was well that I did, however, for, possibly an hour later, I
thought I could make out something moving on the beach. I watched
intently, but my ears were rewarded first, by a raspy cough I knew
only too well. Yellow Handkerchief had sneaked back, landed on the
other side of the island, and crept around to surprise me if I had
returned.
After that, though hours passed without sign of him, I was afraid to
return to the island at all. On the other hand, I was equally afraid
that I should die of the exposure I was undergoing. I had never
dreamed one could suffer so. I grew so cold and numb, finally, that I
ceased to shiver. But my muscles and bones began to ache in a way that
was agony. The tide had long since begun to rise, and, foot by foot,
it drove me in toward the beach. High water came at three o'clock, and
at three o'clock I drew myself up on the beach, more dead than alive,
and too helpless to have offered any resistence had Yellow
Handkerchief swooped down upon me.
But no Yellow Handkerchief appeared. He had given up and gone back to
Point Pedro. Nevertheless, I was in a deplorable, not to say a
dangerous, condition. I could not stand upon my feet, much less walk.
My clammy, muddy, garments clung to me like sheets of ice. I thought I
should never get them off. So numb and lifeless were my fingers, and
so weak was I, that it seemed to take an hour to get off my shoes. I
had not the strength to break the porpoise-hide laces, and the knots
defied me. I repeatedly beat my hands upon the rocks to get some sort
of life into them. Sometimes I felt sure I was going to die.
But in the end,--after several centuries, it seemed to me,--I got off
the last of my clothes. The water was now close at hand, and I crawled
painfully into it and washed the mud from my naked body. Still, I
could not get on my feet and walk and I was afraid to lie still.
Nothing remained but to crawl weakly, like a snail, and at the cost of
constant pain, up and down the island. I kept this up as along as
possible, but as the east paled with the coming of dawn I began to
succumb. The sky grew rosy-red, and the golden rim of the sun, showing
above the horizon, found me lying helpless and motionless among the
clam-shells.
As in a dream, I saw the familiar mainsail of the _Reindeer_ as she
slipped out of San Rafael Creek on a light puff of morning air. This
dream was very much broken. There are intervals I can never recollect
on looking back over it. Three things, however, I distinctly remember:
the first sight of the _Reindeer's_ mainsail; her lying at anchor a
few hundred feet away and a small boat leaving her side; and the cabin
stove roaring red-hot, myself swathed all over with blankets, except
on the chest and shoulders, which Charley was pounding and mauling
unmercifully, and my mouth and throat burning with the coffee which
Neil Partington was pouring down a trifle too hot.
But burn or no burn, I tell you it felt good. By the time we arrived
in Oakland I was as limber and strong as ever,--though Charley and
Neil Partington were afraid I was going to have pneumonia, and Mrs.
Partington, for my first six months of school, kept an anxious eye
upon me to discover the first symptoms of consumption.
Time flies. It seems but yesterday that I was a lad of sixteen on the
fish patrol. Yet I know that I arrived this very morning from China,
with a quick passage to my credit, and master of the barkentine
_Harvester_. And I know that to-morrow morning I shall run over to
Oakland to see Neil Partington and his wife and family, and later on
up to Benicia to see Charley Le Grant and talk over old times. No; I
shall not go to Benicia, now that I think about it. I expect to be a
highly interested party to a wedding, shortly to take place. Her name
is Alice Partington, and, since Charley has promised to be best man,
he will have to come down to Oakland instead.