Straining and gasping, with tense muscles and heaving chests, they brought the cumbersome weight over the side, rolled it on top of the rail, and lowered it into the cockpit on the run.  The cabin doors were thrown apart, and it was moved along, end for end, till it lay on the cabin floor, snug against the end of the centerboard-case.  Red Nelson had followed it aboard to superintend.  His left arm hung helpless at his side, and from the finger-tips blood dripped with monotonous regularity.  He did not seem to mind it, however, nor even the mutterings of the human storm he had raised ashore, and which, to judge by the sounds, was even then threatening to break upon them.

“Lay your course for the Golden Gate,” he said to French Pete, as he turned to go.  “I ’ll try to stand by you, but if you get lost in the dark I ’ll meet you outside, off the Farralones, in the morning.”  He sprang into the skiff after the men, and, with a wave of his uninjured arm, cried heartily:  “And then it ’s for Mexico, my lads—­Mexico and summer weather!”

Just as the Dazzler, freed from her anchor, paid off under the jib and filled away, a dark sail loomed under their stern, barely missing the skiff in tow.  The cockpit of the stranger was crowded with men, who raised their voices angrily at sight of the pirates.  Joe had half a mind to run forward and cut the halyards so that the Dazzler might be captured.  As he had told French Pete the day before, he had done nothing to be ashamed of, and was not afraid to go before a court of justice.  But the thought of ’Frisco Kid restrained him.  He wanted to take him ashore with him, but in so doing he did not wish to take him to jail.  So he, too, began to experience a keen interest in the escape of the Dazzler.

The pursuing sloop rounded up hurriedly to come about after them, and in the darkness fouled the yacht which lay at anchor.  The man aboard of her, thinking that at last his time had come, gave one wild yell, ran on deck, and leaped overboard.  In the confusion of the collision, and while they were endeavoring to save him, French Pete and the boys slipped away into the night.

The Reindeer had already disappeared, and by the time Joe and ’Frisco Kid had the running-gear coiled down and everything in shape, they were standing out in open water.  The wind was freshening constantly, and the Dazzler heeled a lively clip through the comparatively smooth stretch.  Before an hour had passed, the lights of Hunter’s Point were well on her starboard beam.  ’Frisco Kid went below to make coffee, but Joe remained on deck, watching the lights of South San Francisco grow, and speculating on their destination.  Mexico!  They were going to sea in such a frail craft!  Impossible!  At least, it seemed so to him, for his conceptions of ocean travel were limited to steamers and full-rigged ships.  He was beginning to feel half sorry that he had not cut the halyards, and longed