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 termination.

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 Pedro we noticed many signs of
activity among the shrimp-catchers, 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 law permitted no smaller mesh for catching shad than one
that measured seven and one-half inches inside the knots, while the
mesh of this particular net measured only three inches. It was a
flagrant breach of the rules, and the two fishermen were forthwith
put under arrest. Neil Partington took one of them with him to
help manage the Reindeer, 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