unmistakable sign-language invited them to fall to. But they
laughed, and some crowded into the cabin and some climbed up on
top.
Their laughter was not good laughter. There was a hint of menace
in it, a maliciousness which their black looks verified. The
Yellow Handkerchief, since his discovery of my empty pocket, had
become most insolent in his bearing, and he wormed about among the
other prisoners, talking to them with great earnestness.
Swallowing my chagrin, I stepped down into the cockpit and began
throwing out the water. But hardly had I begun, when the boom
swung overhead, the mainsail filled with a jerk, and the Reindeer
heeled over. The day wind was springing up. George was the
veriest of landlubbers, so I was forced to give over bailing and
take the tiller. The wind was blowing directly off Point Pedro and
the high mountains behind, and because of this was squally and
uncertain, half the time bellying the canvas out and the other half
flapping it idly.
George was about the most all-round helpless man I had ever met.
Among his other disabilities, he was a consumptive, and I knew that
if he attempted to bail, it might bring on a hemorrhage. Yet the
rising water warned me that something must be done. Again I
ordered the shrimp-catchers to lend a hand with the buckets. They
laughed defiantly, and those inside the cabin, the water up to
their ankles, shouted back and forth with those on top.
“You’d better get out your gun and make them bail,” I said to
George.
TALES OF THE FISH PATROL
7
But he shook his head and showed all too plainly that he was
afraid. The Chinese could see the funk he was in as well as I
could, and their insolence became insufferable. Those in the cabin
broke into the food lockers, and those above scrambled down and
joined them in a feast on our crackers and canned goods.
“What do we care?” George said weakly.
I was fuming with helpless anger. “If they get out of hand, it
will be too late to care. The best thing you can do is to get them
in check right now.”
The water was rising higher and higher, and the gusts, forerunners
of a steady breeze, were growing stiffer and stiffer. And between
the gusts, the prisoners, having gotten away with a week’s grub,
took to crowding first to one side and then to the other till the
Reindeer rocked like a cockle-shell. Yellow Handkerchief
approached me, and, pointing out his village on the Point Pedro
beach, gave me to understand that if I turned the Reindeer in that
direction and put them ashore, they, in turn, would go to bailing.
By now the water in the cabin was up to the bunks, and the bed-
clothes were sopping. It was a foot deep on the cockpit floor.
Nevertheless I refused, and I could see by George’s face that he
was disappointed.
“If you don’t show some nerve, they’ll rush us and throw us
overboard,” I said to him. “Better give me your revolver, if you
want to be safe.”
“The safest thing to do,” he chattered cravenly, “is to put them
ashore. I, for one, don’t want to be drowned for the sake of a
handful of dirty Chinamen.”
“And I, for another, don’t care to give in to a handful of dirty
Chinamen to escape drowning,” I answered hotly.
“You’ll sink the Reindeer under us all at this rate,” he whined.
“And what good that’ll do I can’t see.”
“Every man to his taste,” I retorted.
He made no reply, but I could see he was trembling pitifully.
Between the threatening Chinese and the rising water he was beside
himself with fright; and, more than the Chinese and the water, I
feared him and what his fright might impel him to do. I could see
TALES OF THE FISH PATROL
8
him casting longing glances at the small skiff towing astern, so in
the next calm I hauled the skiff alongside. As I did so his eyes
brightened with hope; but before he could guess my intention, I
stove the frail bottom through with a hand-axe, and the skiff
filled to its gunwales.
“It’s sink or float together,” I said. “And if you’ll give me your
revolver, I’ll have the Reindeer bailed out in a jiffy.”
“They’re too many for us,” he whimpered. “We can’t fight them
all.”
I turned my back on him in disgust. The salmon boat had long since
passed from sight behind a little archipelago known as the Marin
Islands, so no help could be looked for from that quarter. Yellow
Handkerchief came up to me in a familiar manner, the water in the
cockpit slushing against his legs. I did not like his looks. I
felt that beneath the pleasant smile he was trying to put on his
face there was an ill purpose. I ordered him back, and so sharply
that he obeyed.
“Now keep your distance,” I commanded, “and don’t you come closer!”
“Wha’ fo’?” he demanded indignantly. “I t’ink-um talkee talkee
heap good.”
“Talkee talkee,” I answered bitterly, for I knew now that he had
understood all that passed between George and me. “What for talkee
talkee? You no sabbe talkee talkee.”
He grinned in a sickly fashion. “Yep, I sabbe velly much. I
honest Chinaman.”
“All right,” I answered. “You sabbe talkee talkee, then you bail
water plenty plenty. After that we talkee talkee.”
He shook his head, at the same time pointing over his shoulder to
his comrades. “No can do. Velly bad Chinamen, heap velly bad. I
t’ink-um – ”
“Stand back!” I shouted, for I had noticed his hand disappear
beneath his blouse and his body prepare for a spring.
Disconcerted, he went back into the cabin, to hold a council,
apparently, from the way the jabbering broke forth. The Reindeer
was very deep in the water, and her movements had grown quite
TALES OF THE FISH PATROL
9
loggy. In a rough sea she would have inevitably swamped; but the
wind, when it did blow, was off the land, and scarcely a ripple
disturbed the surface of the bay.
“I think you’d better head for the beach,” George said abruptly, in
a manner that told me his fear had forced him to make up his mind
to some course of action.
“I think not,” I answered shortly.
“I command you,” he said in a bullying tone.
“I was commanded to bring these prisoners into San Rafael,” was my
reply.
Our voices were raised, and the sound of the altercation brought
the Chinese out of the cabin.
“Now will you head for the beach?”
This from George, and I found myself looking into the muzzle of his
revolver – of the revolver he dared to use on me, but was too
cowardly to use on the prisoners.
My brain seemed smitten with a dazzling brightness. The whole
situation, in all its bearings, was focussed sharply before me –
the shame of losing the prisoners, the worthlessness and cowardice
of George, the meeting with Le Grant and the other patrol men and
the lame explanation; and then there was the fight I had fought so
hard, victory wrenched from me just as I thought I had it within my
grasp. And out of the tail of my eye I could see the Chinese
crowding together by the cabin doors and leering triumphantly. It
would never do.
I threw my hand up and my head down. The first act elevated the
muzzle, and the second removed my head from the path of the bullet
which went whistling past. One hand closed on George’s wrist, the
other on the revolver. Yellow Handkerchief and his gang sprang
toward me. It was now or never. Putting all my strength into a
sudden effort, I swung George’s body forward to meet them. Then I
pulled back with equal suddenness, ripping the revolver out of his
fingers and jerking him off his feet. He fell against Yellow
Handkerchief’s knees, who stumbled over him, and the pair wallowed
in the bailing hole where the cockpit floor was torn open. The
next instant I was covering them with my revolver, and the wild
shrimp-catchers were cowering and cringing away.
TALES OF THE FISH PATROL
10
But I swiftly discovered that there was all the difference in the
world between shooting men who are attacking and men who are doing
nothing more than simply refusing to obey. For obey they would not
when I ordered them into the bailing hole. I threatened them with
the revolver, but they sat stolidly in the flooded cabin and on the
roof and would not move.
Fifteen minutes passed, the Reindeer sinking deeper and deeper, her
mainsail flapping in the calm. But from off the Point Pedro shore
I saw a dark line form on the water and travel toward us. It was
the steady breeze I had been expecting so long. I called to the