leave him alone."

This was a direct thrust at Carmintel, and we could see by the
expression of his face that it sank home. For it was common
knowledge that Big Alec was as willing to bribe as to fight, and
that of late years more than one patrolman had handled the
fisherman'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 we
had attempted to creep upon Big Alec in the gray of dawn and had
been shot at for our trouble.

And thereafter, and for many days, I cudgelled my brains trying to
imagine some possible way by which two men, on an open stretch of
water, could capture another who knew how to use a rifle and was
never to be found without one. Regularly, every slack water,
without slyness, boldly and openly in the broad day, Big Alec was
to be seen running his line. And what made it particularly
exasperating was the fact that every fisherman, from Benicia to
Vallejo knew that he was successfully defying us. Carmintel also
bothered us, for he kept us busy among the shad-fishers of San
Pablo, so that we had little time to spare on the King of the