eeks, 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 p