The King of the Greeks
Big Alec had never been captured by the fish patrol. It was hisboast that no man could take him alive, and it was his history thatof the many men who had tried to take him dead none had succeeded.It was also history that at least two patrolmen who had tried totake him dead had died themselves. Further, no man violated thefish laws more systematically and deliberately than Big Alec.He was called "Big Alec" because of his gigantic stature. Hisheight was six feet three inches, and he was correspondingly broad-shouldered and deep-chested. He was splendidly muscled and hard assteel, and there were innumerable stories in circulation among thefisher-folk concerning his prodigious strength. He was as bold anddominant of spirit as he was strong of body, and because of this hewas widely known by another name, that of "The King of the Greeks."The fishing population was largely composed of Greeks, and theylooked up to him and obeyed him as their chief. And as theirchief, he fought their fights for them, saw that they wereprotected, saved them from the law when they fell into itsclutches, and made them stand by one another and himself in time oftrouble.In the old days, the fish patrol had attempted his capture manydisastrous times and had finally given it over, so that when theword was out that he was coming to Benicia, I was most anxious tosee him. But I did not have to hunt him up. In his usual boldway, the first thing he did on arriving was to hunt us up. CharleyLe Grant and I at the time were under a patrol-man named Carmintel,and the three of us were on the Reindeer, preparing for a trip,when Big Alec stepped aboard. Carmintel evidently knew him, forthey shook hands in recognition. Big Alec took no notice ofCharley or me."I've come down to fish sturgeon a couple of months," he said toCarmintel.His eyes flashed with challenge as he spoke, and we noticed thepatrolman's eyes drop before him."That's all right, Alec," Carmintel said in a low voice. "I'll notbother you. Come on into the cabin, and we'll talk things over,"he added.When they had gone inside and shut the doors after them, Charleywinked with slow deliberation at me. But I was only a youngster,and new to men and the ways of some men, so I did not understand.Nor did Charley explain, though I felt there was something wrongabout the business.Leaving them to their conference, at Charley's suggestion weboarded our skiff and pulled over to the Old Steamboat Wharf, whereBig Alec's ark was lying. An ark is a house-boat of small thoughcomfortable dimensions, and is as necessary to the Upper Bayfisherman as are nets and boats. We were both curious to see BigAlec's ark, for history said that it had been the scene of morethan one pitched battle, and that it was riddled with bullet-holes.We found the holes (stopped with wooden plugs and painted over),but there were not so many as I had expected. Charley noted mylook of disappointment, and laughed; and then to comfort me he gavean authentic account of one expedition which had descended upon BigAlec's floating home to capture him, alive preferably, dead ifnecessary. At the end of half a day's fighting, the patrolmen haddrawn off in wrecked boats, with one of their number killed andthree wounded. And when they returned next morning withreinforcements they found only the mooring-stakes of Big Alec'sark; the ark itself remained hidden for months in the fastnesses ofthe Suisun tules."But why was he not hanged for murder?" I demanded. "Surely theUnited States is powerful enough to bring such a man to justice.""He gave himself up and stood trial," Charley answered. "It costhim fifty thousand dollars to win the case, which he did ontechnicalities and with the aid of the best lawyers in the state.Every Greek fisherman on the river contributed to the sum. BigAlec levied and collected the tax, for all the world like a king.The United States may be all-powerful, my lad, but the fact remainsthat Big Alec is a king inside the United States, with a countryand subjects all his own.""But what are you going to do about his fishing for sturgeon? He'sbound to fish with a 'Chinese line.'"Charley shrugged his shoulders. "We'll see what we will see," hesaid enigmatically.Now a "Chinese line" is a cunning device invented by the peoplewhose name it bears. By a simple system of floats, weights, andanchors, thousands of hooks, each on a separate leader, aresuspended at a distance of from six inches to a foot above thebottom. The remarkable thing about such a line is the hook. It isbarbless, and in place of the barb, the hook is filed long andtapering to a point as sharp as that of a needle. These hoods areonly a few inches apart, and when several thousand of them aresuspended just above the bottom, like a fringe, for a couple ofhundred fathoms, they present a formidable obstacle to the fishthat travel along the bottom.Such a fish is the sturgeon, which goes rooting along like a pig,and indeed is often called "pig-fish." Pricked by the first hookit touches, the sturgeon gives a startled leap and comes intocontact with half a dozen more hooks. Then it threshes aboutwildly, until it receives hook after hook in its soft flesh; andthe hooks, straining from many different angles, hold the lucklessfish fast until it is drowned. Because no sturgeon can passthrough a Chinese line, the device is called a trap in the fishlaws; and because it bids fair to exterminate the sturgeon, it isbranded by the fish laws as illegal. And such a line, we wereconfident, Big Alec intended setting, in open and flagrantviolation of the law.Several days passed after the visit of Big Alec, during whichCharley and I kept a sharp watch on him. He towed his ark aroundthe Solano Wharf and into the big bight at Turner's Shipyard. Thebight we knew to be good ground for sturgeon, and there we feltsure the King of the Greeks intended to begin operations. The tidecircled like a mill-race in and out of this bight, and made itpossible to raise, lower, or set a Chinese line only at slackwater. So between the tides Charley and I made it a point for oneor the other of us to keep a lookout from the Solano Wharf.On the fourth day I was lying in the sun behind the stringer-pieceof the wharf, when I saw a skiff leave the distant shore and pullout into the bight. In an instant the glasses were at my eyes andI was following every movement of the skiff. There were two men init, and though it was a good mile away, I made out one of them tobe Big Alec; and ere the skiff returned to shore I made out enoughmore to know that the Greek had set his line."Big Alec has a Chinese line out in the bight off Turner'sShipyard," Charley Le Grant said that afternoon to Carmintel.A fleeting expression of annoyance passed over the patrolman'sface, and then he said, "Yes?" in an absent way, and that was all.Charley bit his lip with suppressed anger and turned on his heel."Are you game, my lad?" he said to me later on in the evening, justas we finished washing down the Reindeer's decks and were preparingto turn in.A lump came up in my throat, and I could only nod my head."Well, then," and Charley's eyes glittered in a determined way,"we've got to capture Big Alec between us, you and I, and we've gotto do it in spite of Carmintel. Will you lend a hand?""It's a hard proposition, but we can do it," he added after apause."Of course we can," I supplemented enthusiastically.And then he said, "Of course we can," and we shook hands on it andwent to bed.But it was no easy task we had set ourselves. In order to convicta man of illegal fishing, it was necessary to catch him in the actwith all the evidence of the crime about him - the hooks, thelines, the fish, and the man himself. This meant that we must takeBig Alec on the open water, where he could see us coming andprepare for us one of the warm receptions for which he was noted."There's no getting around it," Charley said one morning. "If wecan only get alongside it's an even toss, and there's nothing leftfor us but to try and get alongside. Come on, lad."We were in the Columbia River salmon boat, the one we had usedagainst the Chinese shrimp-catchers. Slack water had come, and aswe dropped around the end of the Solano Wharf we saw Big Alec atwork, running his line and removing the fish."Change places," Charley commanded, "and steer just astern of himas though you're going into the shipyard."I took the tiller, and Charley sat down on a thwart amidships,placing his revolver handily beside him."If he begins to shoot," he cautioned, "get down in the bottom andsteer from there, so that nothing more than your hand will beexposed."I nodded, and we kept silent after that, the boat slipping gentlythrough the water and Big Alec growing nearer and nearer. We couldsee him quite plainly, gaffing the sturgeon and throwing them intothe boat while his companion ran the line and cleared the hooks ashe dropped them back into the water. Nevertheless, we were fivehundred yards away when the big fisherman hailed us."Here! You! What do you want?" he shouted."Keep going," Charley whispered, "just as though you didn't hearhim."The next few moments were very anxious ones. The fisherman wasstudying us sharply, while we were gliding up on him every second."You keep off if you know what's good for you!" he called outsuddenly, as though he had made up his mind as to who and what wewere. "If you don't, I'll fix you!"He brought a rifle to his shoulder and trained it on me."Now will you keep off?" he demanded.I could hear Charley groan with disappointment. "Keep off," hewhispered; "it's all up for this time."I put up the tiller and eased the sheet, and the salmon boat ranoff five or six points. Big Alec watched us till we were out ofrange, when he returned to his work."You'd better leave Big Alec alone," Carmintel said, rather sourly,to Charley that night."So he's been complaining to you, has he?" Charley saidsignificantly.Carmintel flushed painfully. "You'd better leave him alone, I tellyou," he repeated. "He's a dangerous man, and it won't pay to foolwith him.""Yes," Charley answered softly; "I've heard that it pays better toleave him alone."This was a direct thrust at Carmintel, and we could see by theexpression of his face that it sank home. For it was commonknowledge that Big Alec was as willing to bribe as to fight, andthat of late years more than one patrolman had handled thefisherman's money."Do you mean to say - " Carmintel began, in a bullying tone.But Charley cut him off shortly. "I mean to say nothing," he said."You heard what I said, and if the cap fits, why - "He shrugged his shoulders, and Carmintel glowered at him,speechless."What we want is imagination," Charley said to me one day, when wehad attempted to creep upon Big Alec in the gray of dawn and hadbeen shot at for our trouble.And thereafter, and for many days, I cudgelled my brains trying toimagine some possible way by which two men, on an open stretch ofwater, could capture another who knew how to use a rifle and wasnever to be found without one. Regularly, every slack water,without slyness, boldly and openly in the broad day, Big Alec wasto be seen running his line. And what made it particularlyexasperating was the fact that every fisherman, from Benicia toVallejo knew that he was successfully defying us. Carmintel alsobothered us, for he kept us busy among the shad-fishers of SanPablo, so that we had little time to spare on the King of theGreeks. But Charley's wife and children lived at Benicia, and wehad made the place our headquarters, so that we always returned toit."I'll tell you what we can do," I said, after several fruitlessweeks had passed; "we can wait some slack water till Big Alec hasrun his line and gone ashore with the fish, and then we can go outand capture the line. It will put him to time and expense to makeanother, and then we'll figure to capture that too. If we can'tcapture him, we can discourage him, you see."Charley saw, and said it wasn't a bad idea. We watched our chance,and the next low-water slack, after Big Alec had removed the fishfrom the line and returned ashore, we went out in the salmon boat.We had the bearings of the line from shore marks, and we knew wewould have no difficulty in locating it. The first of the floodtide was setting in, when we ran below where we thought the linewas stretched and dropped over a fishing-boat anchor. Keeping ashort rope to the anchor, so that it barely touched the bottom, wedragged it slowly along until it stuck and the boat fetched up hardand fast."We've got it," Charley cried. "Come on and lend a hand to get itin."Together we hove up the rope till the anchor I came in sight withthe sturgeon line caught across one of the flukes. Scores of themurderous-looking hooks flashed into sight as we cleared theanchor, and we had just started to run along the line to the endwhere we could begin to lift it, when a sharp thud in the boatstartled us. We looked about, but saw nothing and returned to ourwork. An instant later there was a similar sharp thud and thegunwale splintered between Charley's body and mine."That's remarkably like a bullet, lad," he said reflectively. "Andit's a long shot Big Alec's making.""And he's using smokeless powder," he concluded, after anexamination of the mile-distant shore. "That's why we can't hearthe report."I looked at the shore, but could see no sign of Big Alec, who wasundoubtedly hidden in some rocky nook with us at his mercy. Athird bullet struck the water, glanced, passed singing over ourheads, and struck the water again beyond."I guess we'd better get out of this," Charley remarked coolly."What do you think, lad?"I thought so, too, and said we didn't want the line anyway.Whereupon we cast off and hoisted the spritsail. The bulletsceased at once, and we sailed away, unpleasantly confident that BigAlec was laughing at our discomfiture.And more than that, the next day on the fishing wharf, where wewere inspecting nets, he saw fit to laugh and sneer at us, and thisbefore all the fishermen. Charley's face went black with anger;but beyond promising Big Alec that in the end he would surely landhim behind the bars, he controlled himself and said nothing. TheKing of the Greeks made his boast that no fish patrol had evertaken him or ever could take him, and the fishermen cheered him andsaid it was true. They grew excited, and it looked like troublefor a while; but Big Alec asserted his kingship and quelled them.Carmintel also laughed at Charley, and dropped sarcastic remarks,and made it hard for him. But Charley refused to be angered,though he told me in confidence that he intended to capture BigAlec if it took all the rest of his life to accomplish it."I don't know how I'll do it," he said, "but do it I will, as sureas I am Charley Le Grant. The idea will come to me at the rightand proper time, never fear."And at the right time it came, and most unexpectedly. Fully amonth had passed, and we were constantly up and down the river, anddown and up the bay, with no spare moments to devote to theparticular fisherman who ran a Chinese line in the bight ofTurner's Shipyard. We had called in at Selby's Smelter oneafternoon, while on patrol work, when all unknown to us ouropportunity happened along. It appeared in the guise of a helplessyacht loaded with seasick people, so we could hardly be expected torecognize it as the opportunity. It was a large sloop-yacht, andit was helpless inasmuch as the trade-wind was blowing half a galeand there were no capable sailors aboard.From the wharf at Selby's we watched with careless interest thelubberly manoeuvre performed of bringing the yacht to anchor, andthe equally lubberly manoeuvre of sending the small boat ashore. Avery miserable-looking man in draggled ducks, after nearly swampingthe boat in the heavy seas, passed us the painter and climbed out.He staggered about as though the wharf were rolling, and told ushis troubles, which were the troubles of the yacht. The onlyrough-weather sailor aboard, the man on whom they all depended, hadbeen called back to San Francisco by a telegram, and they hadattempted to continue the cruise alone. The high wind and big seasof San Pablo Bay had been too much for them; all hands were sick,nobody knew anything or could do anything; and so they had run into the smelter either to desert the yacht or to get somebody tobring it to Benicia. In short, did we know of any sailors whowould bring the yacht into Benicia?Charley looked at me. The Reindeer was lying in a snug place. Wehad nothing on hand in the way of patrol work till midnight. Withthe wind then blowing, we could sail the yacht into Benicia in acouple of hours, have several more hours ashore, and come back tothe smelter on the evening train."All right, captain," Charley said to the disconsolate yachtsman,who smiled in sickly fashion at the title."I'm only the owner," he explained.We rowed him aboard in much better style than he had come ashore,and saw for ourselves the helplessness of the passengers. Therewere a dozen men and women, and all of them too sick even to appeargrateful at our coming. The yacht was rolling savagely, broad on,and no sooner had the owner's feet touched the deck than hecollapsed and joined, the others. Not one was able to bear a hand,so Charley and I between us cleared the badly tangled running gear,got up sail, and hoisted anchor.It was a rough trip, though a swift one. The Carquinez Straitswere a welter of foam and smother, and we came through them wildlybefore the wind, the big mainsail alternately dipping and flingingits boom skyward as we tore along. But the people did not mind.They did not mind anything. Two or three, including the owner,sprawled in the cockpit, shuddering when the yacht lifted and racedand sank dizzily into the trough, and between-whiles regarding theshore with yearning eyes. The rest were huddled on the cabin flooramong the cushions. Now and again some one groaned, but for themost part they were as limp as so many dead persons.As the bight at Turner's Shipyard opened out, Charley edged into itto get the smoother water. Benicia was in view, and we werebowling along over comparatively easy water, when a speck of a boatdanced up ahead of us, directly in our course. It was low-waterslack. Charley and I looked at each other. No word was spoken,but at once the yacht began a most astonishing performance, veeringand yawing as though the greenest of amateurs was at the wheel. Itwas a sight for sailormen to see. To all appearances, a runawayyacht was careering madly over the bight, and now and againyielding a little bit to control in a desperate effort to makeBenicia.The owner forgot his seasickness long enough to look anxious. Thespeck of a boat grew larger and larger, till we could see Big Alecand his partner, with a turn of the sturgeon line around a cleat,resting from their labor to laugh at us. Charley pulled hissou'wester over his eyes, and I followed his example, though Icould not guess the idea he evidently had in mind and intended tocarry into execution.We came foaming down abreast of the skiff, so close that we couldhear above the wind the voices of Big Alec and his mate as theyshouted at us with all the scorn that professional watermen feelfor amateurs, especially when amateurs are making fools ofthemselves.We thundered on past the fishermen, and nothing had happened.Charley grinned at the disappointment he saw in my face, and thenshouted:"Stand by the main-sheet to jibe!"He put the wheel hard over, and the yacht whirled aroundobediently. The main-sheet slacked and dipped, then shot over ourheads after the boom and tautened with a crash on the traveller.The yacht heeled over almost on her beam ends, and a great wailwent up from the seasick passengers as they swept across the cabinfloor in a tangled mass and piled into a heap in the starboardbunks.But we had no time for them. The yacht, completing the manoeuvre,headed into the wind with slatting canvas, and righted to an evenkeel. We were still plunging ahead, and directly in our path wasthe skiff. I saw Big Alec dive overboard and his mate leap for ourbowsprit. Then came the crash as we struck the boat, and a seriesof grinding bumps as it passed under our bottom."That fixes his rifle," I heard Charley mutter, as he sprang uponthe deck to look for Big Alec somewhere astern.The wind and sea quickly stopped our forward movement, and we beganto drift backward over the spot where the skiff had been. BigAlec's black head and swarthy face popped up within arm's reach;and all unsuspecting and very angry with what he took to be theclumsiness of amateur sailors, he was hauled aboard. Also he wasout of breath, for he had dived deep and stayed down long to escapeour keel.The next instant, to the perplexity and consternation of the owner,Charley was on top of Big Alec in the cockpit, and I was helpingbind him with gaskets. The owner was dancing excitedly about anddemanding an explanation, but by that time Big Alec's partner hadcrawled aft from the bowsprit and was peering apprehensively overthe rail into the cockpit. Charley's arm shot around his neck andthe man landed on his back beside Big Alec."More gaskets!" Charley shouted, and I made haste to supply them.The wrecked skiff was rolling sluggishly a short distance towindward, and I trimmed the sheets while Charley took the wheel andsteered for it."These two men are old offenders," he explained to the angry owner;"and they are most persistent violators of the fish and game laws.You have seen them caught in the act, and you may expect to besubpoenaed as witness for the state when the trial comes off."As he spoke he rounded alongside the skiff. It had been torn fromthe line, a section of which was dragging to it. He hauled inforty or fifty feet with a young sturgeon still fast in a tangle ofbarbless hooks, slashed that much of the line free with his knife,and tossed it into the cockpit beside the prisoners."And there's the evidence, Exhibit A, for the people," Charleycontinued. "Look it over carefully so that you may identify it inthe court-room with the time and place of capture."And then, in triumph, with no more veering and yawing, we sailedinto Benicia, the King of the Greeks bound hard and fast in thecockpit, and for the first time in his life a prisoner of the fishpatrol.
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