er a revolver was thrust in
their faces, we hailed with delight an expedition to the Lower Bay
against the Chinese shrimp-catchers.

There were six of us, in two boats, and to avoid suspicion we ran down
after dark and dropped anchor under a projecting bluff of land known as
Point Pinole. As the east paled with the first light of dawn we got
under way again, and hauled close on the land breeze as we slanted
across the bay toward Point Pedro. The morning mists curled and clung
to the water so that we could see nothing, but we busied ourselves
driving the chill from our bodies with hot coffee. Also we had to
devote ourselves to the miserable task of bailing, for in some
incomprehensible way the _Reindeer_ had sprung a generous leak. Half
the night had been spent in overhauling the ballast and exploring the
seams, but the labor had been without avail. The water still poured in,
and perforce we doubled up in the cockpit and tossed it out again.

After coffee, three of the men withdrew to the other boat, a Columbia
River salmon boat, leaving three of us in the _Reindeer_. Then the two
craft proceeded in company till the sun showed over the eastern
skyline. Its fiery rays dispelled the clinging vapors, and there,
before our eyes, like a picture, lay the shrimp fleet, spread out in a
great half-moon, the tips of the crescent fully three miles apart, and
each junk moored fast to the buoy of a shrimp-net. But there was no
stir, no sign of life.

The situation dawned upon us. While waiting for slack water, in which
to lift their heavy nets from the bed of the bay, the Chinese had all
gone to sleep below. We were elated, and our plan of battle was swiftly
formed.

"Throw each of your two men on to a junk," whispered Le Grant to me
from the salmon boat. "And you make fast to a third yourself. We'll do
the same, and there's no reason in the world why we shouldn't capture
six junks at the least."

Then we separated. I put the _Reindeer_ about on the other tack, ran up
under the lee of a junk, shivered the mainsail into the wind and lost
headway, and forged past the stern of the junk so slowly and so near
that one of the patrolmen stepped lightly aboard. Then I kept off,
filled the mainsail, and bore away for a second junk.

Up to this time there had been no noise, but from the first junk
captured by the salmon boat an uproar now broke forth. There was shrill
Oriental yelling, a pistol shot, and more yelling.

"It's all up. T