sun.

Boarding the Key Route train, I soon arrived at the Oakland mole, to
find it crowded with a restless tide of humanity, waiting impatiently
for the overdue boat. Each arriving train added to the congestion,
until the building between the tracks and the gangway was crowded with
anxious commuters.

Finally, after much speculation as to the delay, the tardy boat
arrived, and a steady stream of people flowed by the three gangways to
the upper and lower decks. The last straggler was on board and the
gangplank lifted, reminding me of the stories I had read of raising
the drawbridge across the moat of some ancient feudal castle, and
leaving the mole with its imitation portcullis behind we steamed out
into the bay. The sun shone from a cloudless sky, and there was not
enough wind to straighten out the pennant from the masthead.

We were hardly opposite Yerba Buena Island, however, when we ran into
a fog that completely engulfed us. To plunge from bright sunlight into
a blanket of gray mist so dense that one cannot see fifty feet in any
direction, has just enough spice of danger about it to make it
interesting. It was like being cut off from the world, with nothing in
sight but this clinging curtain enveloping one like a damp cloud,
settling like frost on everything it touches, and glittering like
diamond dust.

An undercurrent of anxiety pervaded the ship, for we were running with
no landmark to guide us, and with only the captain's knowledge of the
bay and the tides to bring us safely through.

Passengers crowded to the rails, straining their eyes into the dense
smother, while whistles were blowing on all sides. The shrill
shriek of the government tug, the hoarse bellow of the ocean liner,
and the fog whistle on Yerba Buena Island, all joined in a strident
warning, sending their intermittent blast over the water.

[Illustration: FOG ON THE BAY]

Our engines were slowed down to half-speed, or just enough to give her
steerage way, while the anxious captain peered from the wheelhouse
with one hand grasping the signal cord, ready for any emergency.

The sea gulls that in clear weather follow the boats back and forth
across the bay by the hundreds, were entirely absent, except for one
sturdy bird that, evidently bewildered, had lost its way in the fog,
and had alighted on the flagpole as if for protection.

Suddenly across our bows a darker spot appeared, which gradually
assumed shape, and a Southern Pacific boat lo