ud from my naked body. Still, I
could not get on my feet and walk and I was afraid to lie still.
Nothing remained but to crawl weakly, like a snail, and at the cost of
constant pain, up and down the island. I kept this up as along as
possible, but as the east paled with the coming of dawn I began to
succumb. The sky grew rosy-red, and the golden rim of the sun, showing
above the horizon, found me lying helpless and motionless among the
clam-shells.

As in a dream, I saw the familiar mainsail of the _Reindeer_ as she
slipped out of San Rafael Creek on a light puff of morning air. This
dream was very much broken. There are intervals I can never recollect
on looking back over it. Three things, however, I distinctly remember:
the first sight of the _Reindeer's_ mainsail; her lying at anchor a
few hundred feet away and a small boat leaving her side; and the cabin
stove roaring red-hot, myself swathed all over with blankets, except
on the chest and shoulders, which Charley was pounding and mauling
unmercifully, and my mouth and throat burning with the coffee which
Neil Partington was pouring down a trifle too hot.

But burn or no burn, I tell you it felt good. By the time we arrived
in Oakland I was as limber and strong as ever,--though Charley and
Neil Partington were afraid I was going to have pneumonia, and Mrs.
Partington, for my first six months of school, kept an anxious eye
upon me to discover the first symptoms of consumption.

Time flies. It seems but yesterday that I was a lad of sixteen on the
fish patrol. Yet I know that I arrived this very morning from China,
with a quick passage to my credit, and master of the barkentine
_Harvester_. And I know that to-morrow morning I shall run over to
Oakland to see Neil Partington and his wife and family, and later on
up to Benicia to see Charley Le Grant and talk over old times. No; I
shall not go to Benicia, now that I think about it. I expect to be a
highly interested party to a wedding, shortly to take place. Her name
is Alice Partington, and, since Charley has promised to be best man,
he will have to come down to Oakland instead.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales of the Fish Patrol, by Jack London

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