their natural enemies.
We menaced their lives, or their living, which is the same thing,
in many ways. We confiscated
illegal traps and nets, the materials
of which had cost them
considerable sums and the making of which
required weeks of labor. We prevented them from catching fish at
many times and seasons, which was
equivalent to preventing 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 Charley and I were
thunderstruck at
the man's effrontery. We did not know at the time, but we learned
afterward, that the net he used was old and
worthless. It could
catch fish, true; but a catch of any size would have torn it to
pieces.
Charley shook his head and said:
"I
confess, it puzzles me. What if he has out only fifty feet? He
could never get it in if we once started for him. And why does he
come here anyway, flaunting his law-breaking in our faces? Right
in our home town, too."
Charley's voice took on an aggrieved tone, and he continued for
some minutes to inveigh against the brazenness of Demetrios Contos.
In the
meantime, the man in question was lolling in the stern of
his boat and watching the net floats. When a large fish is meshed
in a gill-net, the floats by their
agitationadvertise the fact.
And they
evidentlyadvertised it to Demetrios, for he pulled in
about a dozen feet of net, and held aloft for a moment, before he
flung it into the bottom of the boat, a big, glistening
salmon. It
was greeted by the
audience on the wharf with round after round of
cheers. This was more than Charley could stand.
"Come on, lad," he called to me; and we lost no time jumping into
our
salmon boat and getting up sail.
The crowd shouted
warning to Demetrios, and as we darted out from
the wharf we saw him slash his
worthless net clear with a long
knife. His sail was all ready to go up, and a moment later it
fluttered in the
sunshine. He ran aft, drew in the sheet, and
filled on the long tack toward the Contra Costa Hills.
By this time we were not more than thirty feet astern. Charley was
jubilant. He knew our boat was fast, and he knew, further, that in
fine sailing few men were his equals. He was
confident that we
should surely catch Demetrios, and I shared his confidence. But
somehow we did not seem to gain.
It was a pretty sailing
breeze. We were gliding sleekly through
the water, but Demetrios was slowly sliding away from us. And not
only was he going faster, but he was eating into the wind a
fraction of a point closer than we. This was
sharply impressed
upon us when he went about under the Contra Costa Hills and passed
us on the other tack fully one hundred feet dead to windward.
"Whew!" Charley exclaimed. "Either that boat is a daisy, or we've
got a five-gallon coal-oil can fast to our keel!"
It certainly looked it one way or the other. And by the time
Demetrios made the Sonoma Hills, on the other side of the Straits,
we were so
hopelessly outdistanced that Charley told me to slack
off the sheet, and we squared away for Benicia. The fishermen on
Steamboat Wharf showered us with
ridicule when we returned and tied
up. Charley and I got out and walked away, feeling rather
sheepish, for it is a sore stroke to one's pride when he thinks he
has a good boat and knows how to sail it, and another man comes
along and beats him.
Charley mooned over it for a couple of days; then word was brought
to us, as before, that on the next Sunday Demetrios Contos would
repeat his
performance. Charley roused himself. He had our boat
out of the water, cleaned and repainted its bottom, made a trifling
alteration about the centre-board, overhauled the
running gear, and
sat up nearly all of Saturday night
sewing on a new and much larger
sail. So large did he make it, in fact, that
additional ballast
was
imperative, and we stowed away nearly five hundred extra pounds
of old railroad iron in the bottom of the boat.
Sunday came, and with it came Demetrios Contos, to break the law
defiantly in open day. Again we had the afternoon sea-
breeze, and
again Demetrios cut loose some forty or more feet of his rotten
net, and got up sail and under way under our very noses. But he
had anticipated Charley's move, and his own sail peaked higher than
ever, while a whole extra cloth had been added to the after leech.
It was nip and tuck across to the Contra Costa Hills, neither of us
seeming to gain or to lose. But by the time we had made the return
tack to the Sonoma Hills, we could see that, while we footed it at
about equal speed, Demetrios had eaten into the wind the least bit
more than we. Yet Charley was sailing our boat as
finely and
delicately as it was possible to sail it, and getting more out of
it than he ever had before.
Of course, he could have drawn his
revolver and fired at Demetrios;
but we had long since found it
contrary to our natures to shoot at
a fleeing man
guilty of only a petty offence. Also a sort of tacit
agreement seemed to have been reached between the
patrolmen and the
fishermen. If we did not shoot while they ran away, they, in turn,
did not fight if we once laid hands on them. Thus Demetrios Contos
ran away from us, and we did no more than try our best to overtake
him; and, in turn, if our boat proved faster than his, or was
sailed better, he would, we knew, make no
resistance when we caught
up with him.
With our large sails and the
healthybreeze romping up the
Carquinez Straits, we found that our sailing was what is called
"ticklish." We had to be
constantly on the alert to avoid a
capsize, and while Charley steered I held the main-sheet in my hand
with but a single turn round a pin, ready to let go at any moment.
Demetrios, we could see, sailing his boat alone, had his hands
full.
But it was a vain
undertaking for us to attempt to catch him. Out
of his inner
consciousness he had evolved a boat that was better
than ours. And though Charley sailed fully as well, if not the
least bit better, the boat he sailed was not so good as the
Greek's.
"Slack away the sheet," Charley commanded; and as our boat fell off
before the wind, Demetrios's mocking laugh floated down to us.
Charley shook his head,
saying, "It's no use. Demetrios has the
better boat. If he tries his
performance again, we must meet it
with some new scheme."
This time it was my
imagination that came to the rescue.
"What's the matter," I suggested, on the Wednesday following, "with
my chasing Demetrios in the boat next Sunday, while you wait for
him on the wharf at Vallejo when he arrives?"
Charley considered it a moment and slapped his knee.
"A good idea! You're
beginning to use that head of yours. A
credit to your teacher, I must say."
"But you mustn't chase him too far," he went on, the next moment,
"or he'll head out into San Pablo Bay instead of
running home to
Vallejo, and there I'll be,
standinglonely on the wharf and
waiting in vain for him to arrive."
On Thursday Charley registered an
objection to my plan.
"Everybody'll know I've gone to Vallejo, and you can depend upon it
that Demetrios will know, too. I'm afraid we'll have to give up
the idea."
This
objection was only too valid, and for the rest of the day I
struggled under my
disappointment. But that night a new way seemed
to open to me, and in my
eagerness I awoke Charley from a sound
sleep.
"Well," he grunted, "what's the matter? House afire?"
"No," I replied, "but my head is. Listen to this. On Sunday you
and I will be around Benicia up to the very moment Demetrios's sail
heaves into sight. This will lull everybody's suspicions. Then,
when Demetrios's sail does heave in sight, do you
stroll leisurely
away and up-town. All the fishermen will think you're
beaten and
that you know you're
beaten."
"So far, so good," Charley commented, while I paused to catch
breath.
"And very good indeed," I continued
proudly. "You
strollcarelessly up-town, but when you're once out of sight you leg it
for all you're worth for Dan Maloney's. Take the little mare of
his, and strike out on the country road for Vallejo. The road's in
fine condition, and you can make it in quicker time than Demetrios
can beat all the way down against the wind."
"And I'll arrange right away for the mare, first thing in the
morning," Charley said, accepting the modified plan without
hesitation.
"But, I say," he said, a little later, this time waking me out of a
sound sleep.
I could hear him chuckling in the dark.
"I say, lad, isn't it rather a
novelty for the fish
patrol to be
taking to horseback?"
"Imagination," I answered. "It's what you're always
preaching -
'keep thinking one thought ahead of the other fellow, and you're
bound to win out.'"
"He! he!" he chuckled. "And if one thought ahead, including a
mare, doesn't take the other fellow's
breath away this time, I'm
not your
humble servant, Charley Le Grant."
"But can you manage the boat alone?" he asked, on Friday.
"Remember, we've a ripping big sail on her."
I argued my proficiency so well that he did not refer to the matter
again till Saturday, when he suggested removing one whole cloth
from the after leech. I guess it was the
disappointment written on
my face that made him desist; for I, also, had a pride in my boat-
sailing abilities, and I was almost wild to get out alone with the
big sail and go tearing down the Carquinez Straits in the wake of
the flying Greek.
As usual, Sunday and Demetrios Contos arrived together. It had