Tales of the Fish Patrol

'I know just the boat,' Neil said, at the conclusion of the discussion, 'a crazy old sloop that's lying over at Tiburon. You and Nicholas can go over by the ferry, charter it for a song, and sail direct for the beds.'

'Good luck be with you, boys,' he said at parting, two days later. 'Remember, they are dangerous men, so be careful.'

Nicholas and I succeeded in chartering the sloop very cheaply; and between laughs, while getting up sail, we agreed that she was even crazier and older than she had been described. She was a big, flat-bottomed, square- sterned craft, sloop-rigged, with a sprung mast, slack rigging, dilapidated sails, and rotten running-gear, clumsy to handle and uncertain in bringing about, and she smelled vilely of coal tar, with which strange stuff she had been smeared from stem to stern and from cabin-roof to centreboard. And to cap it all, Coal Tar Maggie was printed in great white letters the whole length of either side.

It was an uneventful though laughable run from Tiburon to Asparagus Island , where we arrived in the afternoon of the following day. The oyster pirates, a fleet of a dozen sloops, were lying at anchor on what was known as the 'Deserted Beds.' The Coal Tar Maggie came sloshing into their midst with a light breeze astern, and they crowded on deck to see us. Nicholas and I had caught the spirit of the crazy craft, and we handled her in most lubberly fashion.

'Wot is it?' some one called.

'Name it 'n' ye kin have it!' called another.

'I swan naow, ef it ain't the old Ark itself!' mimicked the Centipede from the deck of the Ghost .

'Hey! Ahoy there, clipper ship!' another wag shouted. 'Wot's yer port?'

We took no notice of the joking, but acted, after the manner of greenhorns, as though the Coal Tar Maggie required our undivided attention. I rounded her well to windward of the Ghost , and Nicholas ran for'ard to drop the anchor. To all appearances it was a bungle, the way the chain tangled and kept the anchor from reaching the bottom. And to all appearances Nicholas and I were terribly excited as we strove to clear it. At any rate, we quite deceived the pirates, who took huge delight in our predicament.

But the chain remained tangled, and amid all kinds of mocking advice we drifted down upon and fouled the Ghost , whose bowsprit poked square through our mainsail and ripped a hole in it as big as a barn door. The Centipede and the Porpoise doubled up on the cabin in paroxysms of laughter, and left us to get clear as best we could. This, with much unseamanlike performance, we succeeded in doing, and like-wise in clearing the anchor-chain, of which we let out about three hundred feet. With only ten feet of water under us, this would permit the Coal Tar Maggie to swing in a circle six hundred feet in diameter, in which circle she would be able to foul at least half the fleet.

The oyster pirates lay snugly together at short hawsers, the weather being fine, and they protested loudly at our ignorance in putting out such an unwarranted length of anchor-chain. And not only did they protest, for they made us heave it in again, all but thirty feet.

Having sufficiently impressed them with our general lubberliness, Nicholas and I went below to congratulate ourselves and to cook supper. Hardly had we finished the meal and washed the dishes, when a skiff ground against the Coal Tar Maggie's side, and heavy feet trampled on deck. Then the Centipede's brutal face appeared in the companionway, and he descended into the cabin, followed by the Porpoise. Before they could seat themselves on a bunk, another skiff came alongside, and another, and another, till the whole fleet was represented by the gathering in the cabin.

'Where'd you swipe the old tub?' asked a squat and hairy man, with cruel eyes and Mexican features.

'Didn't swipe it,' Nicholas answered, meeting them on their own ground and encouraging the idea that we had stolen the Coal Tar Maggie . 'And if we did, what of it?'

'Well, I don't admire your taste, that's all,' sneered he of the Mexican features. 'I'd rot on the beach first before I'd take a tub that couldn't get out of its own way.'

'How were we to know till we tried her?' Nicholas asked, so innocently as to cause a laugh. 'And how do you get the oysters?' he hurried on. 'We want a load of them; that's what we came for, a load of oysters.'

'What d'ye want 'em for?' demanded the Porpoise.

'Oh, to give away to our friends, of course,' Nicholas retorted. 'That's what you do with yours, I suppose.'

This started another laugh, and as our visitors grew more genial we could see that they had not the slightest suspicion of our identity or purpose.

'Didn't I see you on the dock in Oakland the other day?' the Centipede asked suddenly of me.

'Yep,' I answered boldly, taking the bull by the horns. 'I was watching you fellows and figuring out whether we'd go oystering or not. It's a pretty good business, I calculate, and so we're going in for it. That is,' I hastened to add, 'if you fellows don't mind.'

'I'll tell you one thing, which ain't two things,' he replied, 'and that is you'll have to hump yerself an' get a better boat. We won't stand to be disgraced by any such box as this. Understand?'

'Sure,' I said. 'Soon as we sell some oysters we'll outfit in style.'

'And if you show yerself square an' the right sort,' he went on, 'why, you kin run with us. But if you don't' (here his voice became stern and menacing), 'why, it'll be the sickest day of yer life. Understand?'

'Sure,' I said.

After that and more warning and advice of similar nature, the conversation became general, and we learned that the beds were to be raided that very night. As they got into their boats, after an hour's stay, we were invited to join them in the raid with the assurance of 'the more the merrier.'

'Did you notice that short, Mexican-looking chap?' Nicholas asked, when they had departed to their various sloops. 'He's Barchi, of the Sporting Life Gang, and the fellow that came with him is Skilling. They're both out now on five thousand dollars' bail.'

I had heard of the Sporting Life Gang before, a crowd of hoodlums and criminals that terrorized the lower quarters of Oakland , and two-thirds of which were usually to be found in state's prison for crimes that ranged from perjury and ballot-box stuffing to murder.

'They are not regular oyster pirates,' Nicholas continued. 'They've just come down for the lark and to make a few dollars. But we'll have to watch out for them.'

We sat in the cockpit and discussed the details of our plan till eleven o'clock had passed, when we heard the rattle of an oar in a boat from the direction of the Ghost . We hauled up our own skiff, tossed in a few sacks, and rowed over. There we found all the skiffs assembling, it being the intention to raid the beds in a body.

To my surprise, I found barely a foot of water where we had dropped anchor in ten feet. It was the big June run-out of the full moon, and as the ebb had yet an hour and a half to run, I knew that our anchorage would be dry ground before slack water.

Mr. Taft's beds were three miles away, and for a long time we rowed silently in the wake of the other boats, once in a while grounding and our oar blades constantly striking bottom. At last we came upon soft mud covered with not more than two inches of water—not enough to float the boats. But the pirates at once were over the side, and by pushing and pulling on the flat-bottomed skiffs, we moved steadily along.

The full moon was partly obscured by high-flying clouds, but the pirates went their way with the familiarity born of long practice. After half a mile of the mud, we came upon a deep channel, up which we rowed, with dead oyster shoals looming high and dry on either side. At last we reached the picking grounds. Two men, on one of the shoals, hailed us and warned us off. But the Centipede, the Porpoise, Barchi, and Skilling took the lead, and followed by the rest of us, at least thirty men in half as many boats, rowed right up to the watchmen.

'You'd better slide outa this here,' Barchi said threateningly, 'or we'll fill you so full of holes you wouldn't float in molasses.'

The watchmen wisely retreated before so overwhelming a force, and rowed their boat along the channel toward where the shore should be. Besides, it was in the plan for them to retreat.

We hauled the noses of the boats up on the shore side of a big shoal, and all hands, with sacks, spread out and began picking. Every now and again the clouds thinned before the face of the moon, and we could see the big oysters quite distinctly. In almost no time sacks were filled and carried back to the boats, where fresh ones were obtained. Nicholas and I returned often and anxiously to the boats with our little loads, but always found some one