"I'm not wanting to dictate to you, lad," Charley said, "but I'm very
much against your making a last raid. You've gone safely through rough
times with rough men, and it would be a shame to have something happen
to you at the very end."
"But how can I get out of making a last raid?" I demanded, with the
cocksureness of youth. "There always has to be a last, you know, to
anything."
Charley crossed his legs, leaned back, and considered the problem. "Very
true. But why not call the capture of Demetrios Contos the last? You're
back from it safe and sound and hearty, for all your good wetting,
and--and----" His voice broke and he could not speak for a moment. "And
I could never forgive myself if anything happened to you now."
I laughed at Charley's fears while I gave in to the claims of his
affection, and agreed to consider the last raid already performed. We
had been together for two years, and now I was leaving the fish patrol
in order to go back and finish my education. I had earned and saved
money to put me through three years at the high school, and though the
beginning of the term was several months away, I intended doing a lot of
studying for the entrance examinations.
My belongings were packed snugly in a sea-chest, and I was all ready to
buy my ticket and ride down on the train to Oakland, when Neil
Partington arrived in Benicia. The _Reindeer_ was needed immediately for
work far down on the Lower Bay, and Neil said he intended to run
straight for Oakland. As that was his home and as I was to live with his
family while going to school, he saw no reason, he said, why I should
not put my chest aboard and come along.
So the chest went aboard, and in the middle of the afternoon we 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, nor 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 amidships 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 upward 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 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 that 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
overcome, 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 around 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 a 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 any 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 instinctively 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 villainous 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 shave
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 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 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 the 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 me 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 almost 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 resistance had Yellow Handkerchief
swooped down upon me.
But no Yellow Handkerchief appeared. He had given me 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 sand. I kept this up as long 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.
[Illustration]