nting them from making as good a
living as they might have made had we not been in existence. And when
we captured them, they were brought into the courts of law, where
heavy cash fines were collected from them. As a result, they hated us
vindictively. As the dog is the natural enemy of the cat, the snake of
man, so were we of the fish patrol the natural enemies of the
fishermen.

But it is to show that they could act generously as well as hate
bitterly that this story of Demetrios Contos is told. Demetrios Contos
lived in Vallejo. Next to Big Alec, he was the largest, bravest, and
most influential man among the Greeks. He had given us no trouble,
and I doubt if he would ever have clashed with us had he not invested
in a new salmon boat. This boat was the cause of all the trouble. He
had had it built upon his own model, in which the lines of the general
salmon boat were somewhat modified.

To his high elation he found his new boat very fast--in fact, faster
than any other boat on the bay or rivers. Forthwith he grew proud and
boastful: and, our raid with the _Mary Rebecca_ on the Sunday salmon
fishers having wrought fear in their hearts, he sent a challenge up to
Benicia. One of the local fishermen conveyed it to us; it was to the
effect that Demetrios Contos would sail up from Vallejo on the
following Sunday, and in the plain sight of Benicia set his net and
catch salmon, and that Charley Le Grant, patrolman, might come and get
him if he could. Of course Charley and I had heard nothing of the new
boat. Our own boat was pretty fast, and we were not afraid to have a
brush with any other that happened along.

Sunday came. The challenge had been bruited abroad, and the fishermen
and seafaring folk of Benicia turned out to a man, crowding Steamboat
Wharf till it looked like the grand stand at a football match. Charley
and I had been sceptical, but the fact of the crowd convinced us that
there was something in Demetrios Contos's dare.

In the afternoon, when the sea-breeze had picked up in strength, his
sail hove into view as he bowled along before the wind. He tacked a
score of feet from the wharf, waved his hand theatrically, like a
knight about to enter the lists, received a hearty cheer in return,
and stood away into the Straits for a couple of hundred yards. Then he
lowered sail, and, drifting the boat sidewise by means of the wind,
proceeded to set his net. He did not set much of it, possibly fifty
feet; yet Charl