“It’s Jack Bone,” said Harman to Blood. “Walk along and I’ll meet you in a minute.”
Blood did as he was directed, and Harman halted at the gangway.
“You’re the man I want,” said Bone. “Who’s your friend?”
“Oh, just a chap,” replied Harman. “What’s up now?”
Bone took him by the arm, and led him along in an opposite direction to that in which Blood was going. Bone was the landlord of the Fore and Aft Tavern, half tavern, half sailors’ boarding house, situated right on Rafferty’s Wharf and with a stairway down to the water from the back premises. His face, to use Harman’s description of it, was one grog blossom, and what he did not know of wicked wharfside ways could scarcely be called knowledge.
“Ginnell is layin’ about, lookin’ for two hands,” said Bone. “He’s due out this evenin’, and it’s five dollars apiece for you if you can lay your claws on what he wants. Whites, they must be whites; you know Ginnell.”
Harman did.
Ginnell owned a fifty-foot schooner engaged sometimes in the shark-fishing trade, sometimes in other businesses of a more shady description. He had a Chinese crew, and, though the customhouse laws of San Francisco demanded only one white officer on a Chinese-manned boat, Ginnell always made a point of carrying two men of his own colour with him.
Being known as a hard man all along the wharfside, he sometimes found a difficulty in supplying himself with hands.