Just then Pete came out to relieve at the tiller while they went in to eat.  Both lads hailed his advent with feelings of relief, and the awkwardness vanished over the dinner, which was all their skipper had claimed it to be.  Afterward ’Frisco Kid relieved Pete, and while he was eating Joe washed up the dishes and put the cabin shipshape.  Then they all gathered in the stern, where the captain strove to increase the general cordiality by entertaining them with descriptions of life among the pearl-divers of the South Seas.

In this fashion the afternoon wore away.  They had long since left San Francisco behind, rounded Hunter’s Point, and were now skirting the San Mateo shore.  Joe caught a glimpse, once, of a party of cyclists rounding a cliff on the San Bruno Road, and remembered the time when he had gone over the same ground on his own wheel.  It was only a month or two before, but it seemed an age to him now, so much had there been to come between.

By the time supper had been eaten and the things cleared away, they were well down the bay, off the marshes behind which Redwood City clustered.  The wind had gone down with the sun, and the Dazzler was making but little headway, when they sighted a sloop bearing down upon them on the dying wind.  ’Frisco Kid instantly named it as the Reindeer, to which French Pete, after a deep scrutiny, agreed.  He seemed very much pleased at the meeting.

“Red Nelson runs her,” ’Frisco Kid informed Joe.  “And he ’s a terror and no mistake.  I ’m always afraid of him when he comes near.  They ’ve got something big down here, and they ’re always after French Pete to tackle it with them.  He knows more about it, whatever it is.”

Joe nodded, and looked at the approaching craft curiously.  Though somewhat larger, it was built on about the same lines as the Dazzler which meant, above everything else, that it was built for speed.  The mainsail was so large that it was more like that of a racing-yacht, and it carried the points for no less than three reefs in case of rough weather.  Aloft and on deck everything was in place—­nothing was untidy or useless.  From running-gear to standing rigging, everything bore evidence of thorough order and smart seamanship.

The Reindeer came up slowly in the gathering twilight and went to anchor a biscuit-toss away.  French Pete followed suit with the Dazzler, and then went in the skiff to pay them a visit.  The two lads stretched themselves out on top the cabin and awaited his return.

“Do you like the life?” Joe broke silence.

The other turned on his elbow.  “Well—­I do, and then again I don’t.  The fresh air, and the salt water, and all that, and the freedom—­that ’s all right; but I don’t like the—­the—­” He paused a moment, as though his tongue had failed in its duty, and then blurted out:  “the stealing.”

“Then why don’t you quit it?” Joe liked the lad more than he dared confess to himself, and he felt a sudden missionary zeal come upon him.