It was a rough trip, though a swift one. The Carquinez Straits
were a welter of foam and smother, and we came through them wildly
before the wind, the big mainsail alternately dipping and flinging
its 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 raced
and sank dizzily into the trough, and between-whiles regarding the
shore with yearning eyes. The rest were huddled on the cabin floor
among the cushions. Now and again some one groaned, but for the
most part they were as limp as so many dead persons.

As the bight at Turner's Shipyard opened out, Charley edged into it
to get the smoother water. Benicia was in view, and we were
bowling along over comparatively easy water, when a speck of a boat
danced up ahead of us, directly in our course. It was low-water
slack. Charley and I looked at each other. No word was spoken,
but at once the yacht began a most astonishing performance, veering
and yawing as though the greenest of amateurs was at the wheel. It
was a sight for sailormen to see. To all appearances, a runaway
yacht was careering madly over the bight, and now and again
yielding a little bit to control in a desperate effort to make
Benicia.

The owner forgot his seasickness long enough to look anxious. The
speck of a boat grew larger and larger, till we could see Big Alec
and his partner, with a turn of the sturgeon line around a cleat,
resting from their labor to laugh at us. Charley pulled his
sou'wester over his eyes, and I followed his example, though I
could not guess the idea he evidently had in mind and intended to