| THERE IS ANOTHER EDITION OF THIS TITLE WITH ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS WHICH MAY VIEWED AT EBOOK [# 28693 ] |
Transcribed from the 1914 William Heinemann edition by DavidPrice,
Tales of the
Fish Patrol
By
Jack London
Author of “Burning Daylight,” etc.
London
William Heinemann
1914
p. 1WHITEAND YELLOW
San Francisco Bay is so large thatoften its storms are more disastrous to ocean-going craft than isthe ocean itself in its violent moments. The waters of thebay contain all manner of fish, wherefore its surface is ploughedby the keels of all manner of fishing boats manned by all mannerof fishermen. To protect the fish from this motley floatingpopulation many wise laws have been passed, and there is a fishpatrol to see that these laws are enforced. Exciting timesare the lot of the fish patrol: in its history more than one deadpatrolman has marked defeat, and more often dead fishermen acrosstheir illegal nets have marked success.
Wildest among the fisher-folk may be accounted the Chineseshrimp-catchers. It is the habit of the shrimp to crawlalong the bottom in vast armies till it reaches fresh water, whenit turns about and crawls back again to the salt. And wherethe tide ebbs and flows, the Chinese sink great bag-nets to thebottom, with gaping mouths, into which the shrimp crawls and fromwhich it is transferred to the boiling-pot. This in itselfwould not be bad, were it not for the small mesh of the nets, sosmall that the tiniest fishes, little new-hatched things not aquarter of an inch long, cannot pass through. The beautifulbeaches of Points Pedro and Pablo, where are theshrimp-catchers’ villages, are made fearful by the stenchfrom myriads of decaying fish, and against this wastefuldestruction it has ever been the duty of the fish patrol toact.
When I was a youngster of sixteen, a good sloop-sailor andall-round bay-waterman, my sloop, the Reindeer, waschartered by the Fish Commission, and I became for the time beinga deputy patrolman. After a deal of work among the Greekfishermen of the Upper Bay and rivers, where knives flashed atthe beginning of trouble and men permitted themselves to be madeprisoners only after a revolver was thrust in their faces, wehailed with delight an expedition to the Lower Bay against theChinese shrimp-catchers.
There were six of us, in two boats, and to avoid suspicion weran down after dark and dropped anchor under a projecting bluffof land known as Point Pi