Then they all gathered in the stern, where the captain strove to increase the general cordiality by entertaining them with descriptions of life among the pearl-divers of the South Seas.
In this fashion the afternoon wore away.

They had long since left San Francisco behind, rounded Hunter's Point, and were now skirting the San Mateo shore.

Joe caught a glimpse, once, of a party of cyclists rounding a cliff on the San Bruno Road, and remembered the time when he had gone over the same ground on his own wheel.

It was only a month or two before, but it seemed an age to him now, so much had there been to come between.
By the time supper had been eaten and the things cleared away, they were well down the bay, off the marshes behind which Redwood City clustered.
The wind had gone down with the sun, and the _Dazzler_ was making but little headway, when they sighted a sloop bearing down upon them on the dying wind.

'Frisco Kid instantly named it as the _Reindeer_, to which French Pete, after a deep scrutiny, agreed.