“No,” I replied, “but my head is. Listen to this. On Sunday you and I will be around Benicia up to the very moment Demetrios’s sail heaves into sight. This will lull everybody’s suspicions. Then, when Demetrios’s sail does heave in sight, do you stroll leisurely away and up-town. All the fishermen will think you’re beaten and that you know you’re beaten.”
“So far, so good,” Charley commented, while I paused to catch breath.
“And very good indeed,” I continued proudly. “You stroll carelessly up-town, but when you’re once out of sight you leg it for all you’re worth for Dan Maloney’s. Take the little mare of his, and strike out on the country road for Vallejo. The road’s in fine condition, and you can make it in quicker time than Demetrios can beat all the way down against the wind.”
“And I’ll arrange right away for the mare, first thing in the morning,” Charley said, accepting the modified plan without hesitation.
“But, I say,” he said, a little later, this time waking me out of a sound sleep.
I could hear him chuckling in the dark.
“I say, lad, isn’t it rather a novelty for the fish patrol to be taking to horseback?”
“Imagination,” I answered. “It’s what you’re always preaching—‘keep thinking one thought ahead of the other fellow, and you’re bound to win out.’”
“He! he!” he chuckled. “And if one thought ahead, including a mare, doesn’t take the other fellow’s breath away this time, I’m not your humble servant, Charley Le Grant.”
“But can you manage the boat alone?” he asked, on Friday. “Remember, we’ve a ripping big sail on her.”