rest of us. These fights were finished, one way or the other, or we
separated them with drinks, while all the time Nelson and Soup Kennedy
fought on. Occasionally we returned to them and gave advice, such as,
when they lay exhausted in the sand, unable to strike a blow, "Throw sand
in his eyes." And they threw sand in each other's eyes, recuperated, and
fought on to successive exhaustions.

And now, of all this that is squalid, and ridiculous, and bestial, try to
think what it meant to me, a youth not yet sixteen, burning with the
spirit of adventure, fancy-filled with tales of buccaneers and
sea-rovers, sacks of cities and conflicts of armed men, and
imagination-maddened by the stuff I had drunk. It was life raw and
naked, wild and free--the only life of that sort which my birth in time
and space permitted me to attain. And more than that. It carried a
promise. It was the beginning. From the sandspit the way led out
through the Golden Gate to the vastness of adventure of all the world,
where battles would be fought, not for old shirts and over stolen salmon
boats, but for high purposes and romantic ends.

And because I told Scotty what I thought of his letting an old man like
French Frank get away with him, we, too, brawled and added to the
festivity of the sandspit. And Scotty threw up his job as crew, and
departed in the night with a pair of blankets belonging to me. During
the night, while the oyster pirates lay stupefied in their bunks, the
schooner and the Reindeer floated on the high water and swung about to
their anchors. The salmon boat, still filled with rocks and water,
rested on the bottom.

In the morning, early, I heard wild cries from the Reindeer, and tumbled
out in the chill grey to see a spectacle that made the water-front laugh
for days. The beautiful salmon boat lay on the hard sand, squashed flat
as a pancake, while on it were perched French Frank's schooner and the
Reindeer. Unfortunately two of the Reindeer's planks had been crushed in
by the stout oak stem of the salmon boat. The rising tide had flowed
through the hole, and just awakened Nelson by getting into his bunk with
him. I lent a hand, and we pumped the Reindeer out and repaired the
damage.

Then Nelson cooked breakfast, and while we ate we considered the
situation. He was broke. So was I. The fifty dollars reward would
never be paid for that pitiful mess of splinters on the sand beneath us.
He had a wounded hand and