DEEP SEA GAME
WHEN a fishing launch is sighted putting into the Crescent Bay of Avalon at Catalina Island, the vacationists look seaward with interest. If the approaching launch displays a tuna flag—symbolic of having caught at least one of that game fish—the interest is manifested in expressions of "Let's go see if it's big enough to get a button from the Tuna Club."
But when the mast of the little craft carries both tuna and swordfish flags, the interest is displayed in action. The boardwalk is vacated. Purchases in the little stores along Wriglet Way are curtailed. Small boys take up the cry of "Fishin' boat's comin' in! Fishin' boat's comin' in!" and long before the fishing launch has reached the float at the end of the pier, the concerted movement from all sides has abruptly taken on the semblance of an exodus. Each man, woman and child striving to be the first to reach the end of the pier and gain the first glimpse of fisherman and catch.
It was on one of such occasions that two men, plainly from the desert country, were caught by the turmoil from a point about the middle of the pier and carried unwillingly by curious, onrushing hordes, until the two bewildered men were pressed flat against the rail at the extreme end of the pier and it seemed that they must necessarily jump into the ocean and swim ashore if they valued their lives.
One of them, a broad-shouldered, blue-eyed, placid man with a tinge of color under tanned cheeks, was Dick Brownell of the revenue service. The man with him was Jack Crowley, the tall, slim, red-headed Texan who had accompanied Brownell on so many expeditions against smugglers along the Mexican border.
"Wh—what do you make of it?" he breathlessly asked, plainly angered by his treatment from the mob.
"Guess they're more anxious than you and me, Jack," coolly returned Brownell. "They want to see li'l tuna and li'l swordfish," he added, easing his body from the railing with his broad hairy hand.
Just then, the fishing launch that had been responsible for the commotion touched at the float. The bushy-browed captain threw a hawser to a waiting attendant and the launch came to, rising and falling gently with the ground swells.
A sun-burned, stocky man in careful fishing togs slowly rose from one of the swivel chairs at the stern, stepped on the rail and jumped to the float.
Brownell's hand suddenly gripped Crowley's arms. His face was tense as he kept his eyes on the fisherman, then it relaxed into a peculiar combination of smiling lips and steady, obstinate eyes. It was Brownell's characteristic smile of action. The smile that always came to him with the grim determination to fight—and win out.
"What's the big idea?" gruffly demanded Crowley.
"Trail him, Jack," Brownell quietly leaned over and whispered. "Find out all you can about what he's doing here."
"Suppose you do that little thing yourself," obstinately retorted Crowley. "I'm here on a vacation, and this is my first day."
"It's Bowser, Chic Bowser," said Brownell, keeping his eyes on the man, "He'll know me the moment he sets eyes on me. Big game going on, Jack. Otherwise, he wouldn't be here."
Crowley looked at the fisherman appraisingly, scowled as he glanced back at Brownell, then shrugged hopelessly and wormed his way along the rail to the plank that ran up from the float and waited.
Bowser was helping unload the fish to the float. This task finished, he spoke in undertones to the captain, then came up the plank.
Brownell kept looking down at the float. Seemingly, he was engrossed in the novel sight afforded by the big yellow fin tuna and the three hundred pound marlin, but his mind was far off. He was thinking of that night three years ago when Chic Bowser had wounded him in a running fight—and gotten away. Thinking how the boys had jeered and called him an infant when he had been forced to report failure in capturing the smuggler. "I'll get him, somewhere, some time," he had boasted in hurt pride. And now Bowser had bobbed up when he was least expected.
Brownell risked a glance over his shoulder. He could see Bowser in the thinning mob fifty feet away, protesting against the efforts of an "official" photographer. No wonder he refused to be photographed with his catch. Too many people were apt to see the picture of the "sportsman" when posted in the glass case with other record breakers.
Vaguely, he heard the captain remark that it had taken thirty minutes to land the swordfish and that it had jumped nineteen times. He watched the enormous yellow fin tuna being carried across the float, up the plank to the pier itself; but it held no particular interest for him. He was thinking of Bowser, trying to formulate some plan that would land the smuggler. Still, no plan could be complete without Crowley's report. But what was Bowser's game? Why was he in Catalina? Smuggling of course, but why choose a base so remote from the Mexican border?
He heard a yell back of him. It was the captain importuning a helper for so carelessly handling the fish. "Didn't you hear me say the big ones are to be mounted!" the man bellowed. "Pick 'em up and carry 'em to the scales!"
In a flash, it came to him. That was part of the scheme—mounting that fish. Why else would a man like Bowser have them mounted? That was it. Bowser was smuggling opium to the mainland in the stuffed fish! But where did he get it? Mexico, no doubt. Perhaps he brought it up in that fishing launch.
He fell in with the group that was surrounding the Tuna Club's official scales. Saw the scale register two hundred and forty pounds. Heard the comment of admiration and the captain's statement that it was the biggest yellow fin in years, but it was not the breaking of records that brought a smile to his lips—it was the thought of the number of cans of brown sticky stuff that could be concealed in the fish when mounted.
He must get to that launch, somehow. Maybe it would reveal something important. He touched the captain's arm.
"You run the Gray Goose?" he inquired.
"Yep," said the captain, struggling to maintain his hold on one end of the tuna as it was being lifted from the scales.
"I've been wondering if I could rent it for a few days."
