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Charley Le Grant and I laid siege for two weeks to a big four-masted English ship. Before we had finished with the affair it became a pretty mathematical problem, and it was by the merest chance that we came into possession of the instrument that brought it to a successful solution.
     After our raid on the oyster pirates we had returned to Oakland, where two more weeks passed before Neil Partington's wife was out of danger and on the highroad to recovery. So, it was after an absence of a month, all told, that we turned the Reindeer's nose toward Benicia.
     When the cat's away the mice will play, and in these four weeks the fishermen had become very bold in violating the law. When we passed Point San Pedro we noticed many signs of activity among the shrimp-catcher, and, well into San Pablo Bay, we observed a widely scattered fleet of Upper Bay fishing-boats hastily pulling in their nets and getting up sail.
     This was suspicious enough to warrant investigation, and the first and only boat we succeeded in boarding proved to have an illegal net. The two fishermen were forthwith put under arrest. Neil Partington took one of them with him, to help manage the Reindeer in pursuit of the fleet, while Charley and I went on ahead with the other in the captured boat.
     But the shad fleet had headed over toward the Petaluma shore in wild flight, and for the rest of the run through San Pablo Bay we saw no more fishermen at all.
     Our prisoner, a bronzed and bearded Greek, sat sullenly on his net while we sailed his craft. It was a new Columbian River salmon-boat, evidently on its first trip, and it sailed very, very well.
     Charley and I ran up the Karquines Strait and edged into the bight at Turner's shipyard for smoother water. Here were lying several English steel sailing-ships, waiting for the wheat harvest; and here, most unexpectedly, in the precise place where we had captured Big Alec, we came upon two Italians, in a skiff that was loaded with a complete "Chinese" sturgeon-line.
     The surprise was mutual, and we were on top of them before either they or we were aware. Charley had barely time to luff into the wind and run up to them. I ran forward and tossed them a line, with orders to make it fast. One of the Italians took a turn with it over a cleat, while I hastened to lower our big spritsail. This accomplished, the salmon-boat dropped astern, dragging heavily on the skiff.
     Charley came forward to board the prize, but when I tried to haul alongside by means of the line, the Italian cast it off. We at once began drifting to leeward, while they got out two pairs of oars and rowed their light craft directly into the wind. This manœuver for the moment disconcerted us, for in our large and heavily loaded boat we could not hope to catch them with the oars.
     But our prisoner came unexpectedly to our aid. His black eyes were flashing eagerly and his face was flushed with suppressed excitement as he dropped the centerboard, sprang forward with a single leap, and put up the sail.
     "I've always heard that Greeks don't like Italians," Charley laughed, as he ran aft to the tiller.
     And never in my experience have I seen a man so anxious for the capture of another as was our prisoner in the chase that followed. His eyes fairly snapped, and his nostrils quivered and dilated in a most extraordinary way. Charley steered, while he tended the sheet; and although Charley was as quick and alert as a cat, the Greek could hardly control his impatience.
     The Italians were cut off from the shore, which was fully a mile away at its nearest point. Did they attempt to make it, we could haul after them with the wind abeam, and overtake them before they had covered an eighth of the distance.
     But they were too wise to attempt it, contenting themselves with rowing lustily to windward along the starboard side of a big ship, the Lancashire Queen. Beyond the ship, however, lay an open stretch of fully two miles to the shore in that direction. This, also, they dared not attempt, for we were bound to catch them before they could cover it. So, when they reached the bow of the Lancashire Queen, nothing remained but to pass round and row down her port side toward the stern, which meant rowing to leeward and giving us the advantage.
     We in the salmon boat, sailing close on the wind, tacked about and crossed the ship's bow. Then Charley put up the tiller and headed down the port side of the ship, the Greek letting out the sheet and grinning with delight. The Italians were already half-way down the ship, but the stiff breeze at our back drove us after them far faster than they could row. Closer and closer we came, and I, lying down forward, was just reaching out to grasp the skiff when it ducked under the great stern of the Lancashire Queen.
     The chase was virtually where it had begun. The Italians were rowing up the starboard side of the ship, and we were hauled close on the wind and slowly edging out from the ship as we worked to windward. Then they darted round her bow and began to row down her port side, and we tacked about, crossed her bow, and went plunging down the wind hot after them. And again, just as I was reaching for the skiff, it ducked under the stern of the ship and out of danger. And so it went, round and round, the skiff each time just barely ducking into safety.
     By this time the crew of the ship had become aware of what was taking place, and we could see their heads in a long row as they looked at us over the bulwarks. They showered us and the Italians with jokes and advice, and made our Greek so angry that at least once on each circuit he raised his fist and shook it at them in a rage. They came to look for this, and at each display greeted it with an uproarious mirth.
     "Wot a circus!" cried one.
     "Talk about your marine hippodromes, if this ain't one I'd like to know!" declared another.
     "Six-days-go-as-yer-please!" announced a third.
     On the next track to windward the Greek offered to change places with Charley.
     "Let-a me sail-a de boat," he demanded. "I fix-a them; I catch-a them, sure!"
     This was a stroke at Charley's professional pride, but he yielded the tiller to the prisoner and took his place at the sheet. Three times again we made the circuit, and the Greek found that he could get no more speed out of the salmon-boat than Charley had done.
     In the meantime my mind had not been idle, and I had finally evolved an idea.
     "Keep going, Charley, one time more," I said.
     On the next track to windward I bent a piece of line to a small grappling hook I had seen lying in the bail-hole. The end of the line I made fast to the ring-bolt in the bow, and with the hook out of sight, I waited for the next opportunity to use it.
     Once more the Italians made their leeward pull down the port side of the Lancashire Queen, and once more we churned down after them before the wind. Nearer and nearer we drew, and I was making believe to reach for them as before. The stern of the skiff was not six feet away, and they were laughing at me derisively as they ducked under the stern of the ship.
     At that instance I suddenly rose and threw the grappling-iron. It caught fairly and squarely on the rail of the skiff, which was jerked backward out of safety as the rope tightened and the salmon-boat plowed on.
     A groan went up from the row of sailors above, which quickly changed to a cheer as one of the Italians whipped out a long sheath-knife and cut the rope. But we had drawn them out of safety, and Charley, from his place in the stern-sheets, reached over and clutched the stern of the skiff.
     The whole thing happened in a second of time, for the first Italian was cutting the rope and Charley was clutching the skiff when the second Italian dealt him a rap over the head with an oar. Charley released his hold and collapsed, stunned, into the bottom of the salmon-boat, and the Italians bent to their oars and escaped again under the stern of the ship.
     The Greek took both tiller and sheet, and continued the chase round the Lancashire Queen, while I attended to Charley, on whose head a nasty lump was rising rapidly. Our sailor audience was wild with delight, and to a man encouraged the fleeing Italians. Charley sat up, with one hand on his head, and gazed about him sheepishly.
     "It will never do to let them escape now," he said, at the same time drawing his revolver.
     On our next circuit he threatened the Italians with the weapon, but they rowed on stolidly. Nor were they to be frightened into surrendering, even when he fired several shots dangerously close to them. It was too much to expect him to shoot unarmed men, and this they knew as well as we did.
     "We'll run them down, then!" Charley exclaimed. "We'll wear them out and wind them!"
     So the chase continued. But the next time we passed the bow we saw them escaping up the ships gangway, which had been suddenly lowered. It was an organized move on the part of the sailors, evidently countenanced by the captain; for by the time we arrived where the gangway had been, it was being hoisted up, and the skiff, slung in the davits, was likewise flying aloft out or reach.
     The parley that followed with the captain was short and to the point. 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."
     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 in to Benicia and be locked up for his own violations of the law.
     After supper Charley and I kept alternate four-hour watches till daylight. The fishermen made no attempt to escape that night, although the ship sent out a boat for scouting purposes, to find if the coast was 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 so much faster than they could row, we could permit them to travel just 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 the shore, while if we started before they were half-way, they were equally certain to beat us back to the ship. The shore in any other direction was too far away to allow them any opportunity of escape.
     We found that an imaginary line, draw from the end of the wharf to a windmill farther along the shore, cut precisely in half the line of the triangle along which the Italians must escape to reach the land. So this line made it easy for us to determine how far to let them run away before we bestirred ourselves in pursuit.
     Day after day we would watch them through our glasses, as they rowed leisurely along toward the half-way point, and as they drew close into line with the windmill we would leap into the boat and get up sail. At sight of our preparation they would turn and row slowly back to the Lancashire Queen, secure in the knowledge that we could not overtake them.
     To guard against calms—when our salmon-boat would be useless—we had in readiness a light rowing-skiff equipped with spoon-oars. But at such times, when the wind failed us, we were forced to row out from the wharf as soon as they rowed from the ship. In the night, on the other hand, we were compelled to patrol the immediate vicinity of the ship, which we did, Charley and I standing four-hour watches turn and turn about.
     Friends of the Italians established a code of signals with them from the shore, so that we never dared relax the siege for a moment. And besides this, there were always one or two suspicious-looking fishermen hanging round the Solano wharf and keeping watch on our actions. We could do nothing but "grin and bear it," as Charley said, while it took up all our time and prevented us from doing other work.
     The days went by and there was no change in the situation. Not that there were no attempts made to change it. One night friends from the shore came out in a skiff and attempted to confuse us while the two Italians escaped. That they did not succeed was due to the lack of a little oil on the ship's davits; for we were turned back from the pursuit of the strange boat by the creaking of the davits, and arrived at the Lancashire Queen just as the Italians were lowering their skiff.
     Another night fully half a dozen skiffs rowed round us in the darkness, but we held on like a leech to the side of the ship, and frustrated their plan till they grew angry and showered us with abuse.
     Charley laughed to himself in the bottom of the boat.
     "It's a good sign, lad," he said to me. "When men begin to abuse, make sure they're losing patience, and shortly after they lose patience they lose their heads. Mark my words, if we only hold out they'll get careless some fine day, and then we'll get them."
     But they did not grow careless, and Charley confessed that this was one of the times when all signs failed. Their patience seemed equal to ours, and the second week of the siege dragged monotonously along.
     It would have been possible for us to secure the aid of the United States marshals and board the English ship backed by government authority. But the instructions of the fish commission were to the effect that the patrolmen should avoid complications, and this one, did we call on the higher powers, might well end in a pretty international tangle.
     On the morning of the fourteenth day the change came, and it was brought about by means as unexpected by us as by the men we were striving to capture.
     Charley and I, after our customary night vigil by the side of the Lancashire Queen, rowed in to the Solano wharf.
     "Hello!" cried Charley, in surprise. "In the name of reason and common sense, what is that? Of all unmannerly craft, did you ever see the like?"
     Well he might exclaim, for there, tied up to the dock, lay the strangest-looking launch I had ever seen. Not that it could be called a launch either, but it seemed to resemble a launch more than any other kind of boat.
     It was not more than seventy feet long, but so narrow was it and so bare of superstructure that it appeared much smaller than it really was. It was built wholly of steel and painted black. Three smoke-stacks, a good distance apart and raking well aft, rose in single file amidships, while the bow, long and lean and sharp as a knife, plainly advertised that the boat was made for speed. Passing under the stern we read Streak, painted in small white letters.
     In a few minutes we were on board and talking with an engineer, who was watching the sunrise from the deck. He was quite willing to satisfy our curiosity, and in a few minutes we learned that the Streak had come in after dark from San Francisco; that this was what might be called the trial trip, and that she was the property of Silas Taft, a young mining millionaire of California, whose fad was high-speed yachts.
     There was some talk about turbine engines, direct application of steam and the absence of pistons, rods, and cranks. All of this was beyond me, for I was familiar only with sailing craft; but the last words of the engineer I clearly understood.
     "Three thousand horse-power and thirty-five knots an hour, though you wouldn't think it," he concluded, proudly.
     "Say it again, man! Say it again!" Charley exclaimed in an excited voice.
     "Three thousand horse-power and thirty-five knots an hour," the engineer repeated, grinning good-naturedly.
     "Where's the owner?" was Charley's next question. "Is there any way I can speak to him?"
     The engineer shook his head. "No, I'm afraid not. He's asleep, you see."
     At that moment a young man in blue uniform came on deck farther aft, and stood regarding the sunrise.
     "There he is, that's him; that's Mr. Taft," said the engineer.
     Charley walked aft and spoke to him, and while he talked earnestly the young man listened with an amused expression on his face. He must have inquired about the depth of water close in to the shore at Turner's shipyard, for I could see Charley making gestures and explaining. A few minutes later he came back in high glee.
     "Come on lad," he said. "We've got them!"
     It was our good fortune to leave the Streak when we did, for a little later one of the spy fishermen put in his appearance. Charley and I took up our accustomed place on the stringer-piece, a little ahead of the Streak and over our own boat, where we could comfortably watch the Lancashire Queen.
     Nothing occurred till about nine o'clock, when we saw the two Italians leave the ship and pull along their side of the triangle toward the shore. Charley looked as unconcerned as could be, but before they had covered a quarter of the distance he whispered to me:
     "Almost forty miles an hour—nothing can save them—they are ours!"
     Slowly the two men rowed along till they were nearly in line with the windmill. This was the point where we always jumped into our salmon-boat and got up the sail, and the two men, evidently expecting it, seemed surprised when we gave no sign.
     The spy fisherman, sitting beside us on the stringer-piece, was likewise puzzled. He could not make out our inactivity.
     The men in the skiff rowed nearer the shore, but stood up again and scanned it, as if they thought we might be hiding there. But a man came out on the beach and waved a handkerchief to show that the coast was clear. That settled them. They bent to the oars to make a dash for it. Still Charley waited.
     Not until they had covered three-quarters of the distance from the Lancashire Queen, which left them hardly more than a quarter of a mile to gain the shore, did Charley slap me on the shoulder and cry:
     "They're ours! They're ours!"
     We ran the few steps to the side of the Streak and jumped aboard. Sternline and bowline were cast off in a jiffy. The Streak, which had been under steam all the time, shot ahead and away from the wharf. The spy fisherman we had left behind on the stringer-piece pulled out a revolver and fired five shots into the air in rapid succession. The men in the skiff gave instant heed to the warning, for we could see them pulling away like mad.
     But if they pulled like mad, I wonder how our progress can be described! We fairly flew. So frightful was the speed with which we displaced the water that a surge rose up on each side of our bow and foamed aft in a series of three stiff, upstanding waves, while astern a great, crested billow pursued us hungrily, as if at each moment it would fall aboard and destroy us.
     The Streak was pulsing and plunging and roaring like a thing alive. The wind of our progress was like a gale—a forty-mile gale. We could not face it and draw breath without choking and strangling. It blew the smoke straight back from the moths of the stacks at a direct right angle to the perpendicular. In fact, we were traveling as fast as an express-train.
     "We just streaked it," was the way Charley told it afterward, and I think his description comes nearer than any I can give.
     As for the Italians in the skiff, hardly had we started, it seemed to me, when we were upon them. Naturally we had to slow down long before we got to them; but even then we shot past like a whirlwind, and were compelled to circle back between them and the shore.
     They had rowed steadily, rising from the thwarts at every stroke, up to the moment we passed them, when they recognized Charley and me. That took the last bit of fight out of them. They hauled in their oars and sullenly submitted to arrest.
     "Well, Charley," Neil Partington said, as we discussed it on the wharf afterward, "I fail to see where your boasted imagination came into play this time."
     But Charley was true to his hobby. "Imagination?" he demanded, pointing at the Streak. "Look at that! Just look at it! If the invention of that isn't imagination, I should like to know what is?
     "Of course," he added, "it's the other fellow's imagination, but it did the work all the same."

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