But evidently the schooner was not bound up the bay.

"Must be Vallejo or Benicia, then," hazarded Wilbur, as the sails
grew tenser and the water rippled ever louder under the schooner's
forefoot. "Maybe they're going after hay or wheat."

The schooner was tacking, headed directly for Meiggs's wharf. She
came in closer and closer, so close that Wilbur could hear the
talk of the fishermen sitting on the stringpieces. He had just
made up his mind that they were to make a landing there, when--"

"Stand by for stays," came the raucous bark of the Captain, who
had taken on the heel. The sails slatted furiously as the
schooner came about. Then the "Bertha Millner" caught the wind
again and lay over quietly and contentedly to her work. The next
tack brought the schooner close under Alcatraz. The sea became
heavier, the breeze grew stiff and smelled of the outside ocean.
Out beyond them to westward opened the Golden Gate, a bleak vista
of gray-green water roughened with white-caps.

"Stand by for stays."

Once again as the rudder went hard over, the "Bertha Millner"
fretted and danced and shook her sails, calling impatiently for
the wind, chafing at its absence like a child reft of a toy. Then
again she scooped the nor'wester in the hollow palms of her tense
canvases and settled quietly down on the new tack, her bowsprit
pointing straight toward the Presidio.

"We'll come about again soon," Wilbur told himself, "and stand