“What place is that?” Joe asked, as they flew by a lighthouse blinking from a rocky headland.

“Goat Island.  They ’ve got a naval training station for boys over on the other side, and a torpedo-magazine.  There ’s jolly good fishing, too—­rock-cod.  We ’ll pass to the lee of it, and make across, and anchor in the shelter of Angel Island.  There ’s a quarantine station there.  Then when French Pete gets sober we ’ll know where he wants to go.  You can turn in now and get some sleep.  I can manage all right.”

Joe shook his head.  There had been too much excitement for him to feel in the least like sleeping.  He could not bear to think of it with the Dazzler leaping and surging along and shattering the seas into clouds of spray on her weather bow.  His clothes had half dried already, and he preferred to stay on deck and enjoy it.

The lights of Oakland had dwindled till they made only a hazy flare against the sky; but to the south the San Francisco lights, topping hills and sinking into valleys, stretched miles upon miles.  Starting from the great ferry building, and passing on to Telegraph Hill, Joe was soon able to locate the principal places of the city.  Somewhere over in that maze of light and shadow was the home of his father, and perhaps even now they were thinking and worrying about him; and over there Bessie was sleeping cozily, to wake up in the morning and wonder why her brother Joe did not come down to breakfast.  Joe shivered.  It was almost morning.  Then slowly his head dropped over on ’Frisco Kid’s shoulder and he was fast asleep.

CHAPTER XI

CAPTAIN AND CREW

“Come!  Wake up!  We ’re going into anchor.”

Joe roused with a start, bewildered at the unusual scene; for sleep had banished his troubles for the time being, and he knew not where he was.  Then he remembered.  The wind had dropped with the night.  Beyond, the heavy after-sea was still rolling; but the Dazzler was creeping up in the shelter of a rocky island.  The sky was clear, and the air had the snap and vigor of early morning about it.  The rippling water was laughing in the rays of the sun just shouldering above the eastern sky-line.  To the south lay Alcatraz Island, and from its gun-crowned heights a flourish of trumpets saluted the day.  In the west the Golden Gate yawned between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay.  A full-rigged ship, with her lightest canvas, even to the sky-sails, set, was coming slowly in on the flood-tide.

It was a pretty sight.  Joe rubbed the sleep from his eyes and drank in the glory of it till ’Frisco Kid told him to go for’ard and make ready for dropping the anchor.

“Overhaul about fifty fathoms of chain,” he ordered, “and then stand by.”  He eased the sloop gently into the wind, at the same time casting off the jib-sheet.  “Let go the jib-halyards and come in on the downhaul!”