hoisted up, and the skiff, slung in the
ship's davits, was likewise flying aloft out of reach.

The parley that followed with the captain was short and snappy. He
absolutely forbade us to board the _Lancashire Queen_, and as
absolutely refused to give up the two men. By this time Charley was as
enraged as the Greek. Not only had he been foiled in a long and
ridiculous chase, but he had been knocked senseless into the bottom of
his boat by the men who had escaped him.

"Knock off my head with little apples," he declared emphatically,
striking the fist of one hand into the palm of the other, "if those
two men ever escape me! I'll stay here to get them if it takes the
rest of my natural life, and if I don't get them, then I promise you
I'll live unnaturally long or until I do get them, or my name's not
Charley Le Grant!"

And then began the siege of the _Lancashire Queen_, a siege memorable
in the annals of both fishermen and fish patrol. When the _Reindeer_
came along, after a fruitless pursuit of the shad fleet, Charley
instructed Neil Partington to send out his own salmon boat, with
blankets, provisions, and a fisherman's charcoal stove. By sunset this
exchange of boats was made, and we said good-by to our Greek, who
perforce had to go into Benicia and be locked up for his own
violation of the law. After supper, Charley and I kept alternate
four-hour watches till daylight. The fishermen made no attempt to
escape that night, though the ship sent out a boat for scouting
purposes to find if the coast were clear.

By the next day we saw that a steady siege was in order, and we
perfected our plans with an eye to our own comfort. A dock, known as
the Solano Wharf, which ran out from the Benicia shore, helped us in
this. It happened that the _Lancashire Queen_, the shore at Turner's
Shipyard, and the Solano Wharf were the corners of a big equilateral
triangle. From ship to shore, the side of the triangle along which the
Italians had to escape, was a distance equal to that from the Solano
Wharf to the shore, the side of the triangle along which we had to
travel to get to the shore before the Italians. But as we could sail
much faster than they could row, we could permit them to travel about
half their side of the triangle before we darted out along our side.
If we allowed them to get more than half-way, they were certain to
beat us to shore; while if we started before they were half-way, they
were equally certain to beat