Charley was handling the wheel as though he were
steering the winning yacht home in a race. The two sailors who made up
the crew of the _Mary Rebecca_, were grinning and joking. Ole
Ericsen was rubbing his huge hands in child-like glee.

[Illustration: "The consternation we spread among the fishermen was
tremendous."]

"Ay tank you fish patrol fallers never ban so lucky as when you sail
with Ole Ericsen," he was saying, when a rifle cracked sharply astern,
and a bullet gouged along the newly painted cabin, glanced on a nail,
and sang shrilly onward into space.

This was too much for Ole Ericsen. At sight of his beloved paintwork
thus defaced, he jumped up and shook his fist at the fishermen; but a
second bullet smashed into the cabin not six inches from his head, and
he dropped down to the deck under cover of the rail.

All the fishermen had rifles, and they now opened a general fusillade.
We were all driven to cover--even Charley, who was compelled to desert
the wheel. Had it not been for the heavy drag of the nets, we would
inevitably have broached to at the mercy of the enraged fishermen. But
the nets, fastened to the bottom of the _Mary Rebecca_ well aft, held
her stern into the wind, and she continued to plough on, though
somewhat erratically.

Charley, lying on the deck, could just manage to reach the lower
spokes of the wheel; but while he could steer after a fashion, it was
very awkward. Ole Ericsen bethought himself of a large piece of sheet
steel in the empty hold. It was in fact a plate from the side of the
_New Jersey_, a steamer which had recently been wrecked outside the
Golden Gate, and in the salving of which the _Mary Rebecca_ had taken
part.

Crawling carefully along the deck, the two sailors, Ole, and myself
got the heavy plate on deck and aft, where we reared it as a shield
between the wheel and the fishermen. The bullets whanged and banged
against it till it rang like a bull's-eye, but Charley grinned in its
shelter, and coolly went on steering.

So we raced along, behind us a howling, screaming bedlam of wrathful
Greeks, Collinsville ahead, and bullets spat-spatting all around us.

"Ole," Charley said in a faint voice, "I don't know what we're going
to do."

Ole Ericsen, lying on his back close to the rail and grinning upward
at the sky, turned over on his side and looked at him. "Ay tank we go
into Collinsville yust der same," he said.

"But we can't stop," Charley groaned. "I never t