dimensions, and is as necessary to the Upper Bay fisherman as are nets
and boats. We were both curious to see Big Alec's ark, for history said
that it had been the scene of more than one pitched battle, and that it
was riddled with bullet-holes.

We found the holes (stopped with wooden plugs and painted over), but
there were not so many as I had expected. Charley noted my look of
disappointment, and laughed; and then to comfort me he gave an
authentic account of one expedition which had descended upon Big Alec's
floating home to capture him, alive preferably, dead if necessary. At
the end of half a day's fighting, the patrolmen had drawn off in
wrecked boats, with one of their number killed and three wounded. And
when they returned next morning with reenforcements they found only the
mooring-stakes of Big Alec's ark; the ark itself remained hidden for
months in the fastnesses of the Suisun tules.

"But why was he not hanged for murder?" I demanded. "Surely the United
States is powerful enough to bring such a man to justice."

"He gave himself up and stood trial," Charley answered. "It cost him
fifty thousand dollars to win the case, which he did on technicalities
and with the aid of the best lawyers in the state. Every Greek
fisherman on the river contributed to the sum. Big Alec levied and
collected the tax, for all the world like a king. The United States may
be all-powerful, my lad, but the fact remains that Big Alec is a king
inside the United States, with a country and subjects all his own."

"But what are you going to do about his fishing for sturgeon? He's
bound to fish with a 'Chinese line.'"

Charley shrugged his shoulders. "We'll see what we will see," he said
enigmatically.

Now a "Chinese line" is a cunning device invented by the people whose
name it bears. By a simple system of floats, weights, and anchors,
thousands of hooks, each on a separate leader, are suspended at a
distance of from six inches to a foot above the bottom. The remarkable
thing about such a line is the hook. It is barbless, and in place of
the barb, the hook is filed long and tapering to a point as sharp as
that of a needle. These hooks are only a few inches apart, and when
several thousand of them are suspended just above the bottom, like a
fringe, for a couple of hundred fathoms, they present a formidable
obstacle to the fish that travel along the bottom.

Such a fish is the sturgeon, which goes rooting along like a pig, and