At about the same time, a company was organized in San Francisco to buy the oil tanker _Maverick_ from the Standard Oil Company. Fred Jebsen, former lieutenant in the German Navy, put up the money. The _Maverick_ was commanded by Captain H. C. Nelson, and her movements were directed by a young American adventurer, J. B. Starr-Hunt, whom Jebson put aboard as super-cargo (“super-cargo” is an agent put aboard ship by the owner of the merchandise to have charge of the cargo). Parts of a statement subsequently made by young Starr-Hunt tell the rest of the story of the _Maverick_ and the _Annie Larsen_: “I was born in San Antonio, Texas, in November, 1892. I went to a German school in Mexico for nine years. Then I was at Dr. Holbrook’s school for four years at Ossining-on-Hudson, New York. I was then for a year at the University of Virginia; three months at the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia. Besides this I always had private tutors. After leaving the last-named college I joined my father’s law office in Mexico City. This was in the latter part of 1912. My father is one of the leading foreign lawyers in Mexico. In December, 1912, I started for San Francisco to join F. Jebsen & Co., a German firm of shipping agents. I worked in Jebsen’s office from February, 1913, to April, 1915; that is, up to the time I joined the _Maverick_. I was not actually in Jebsen’s office all this time; I made several trips to various parts of the U. S. A. and Mexico. “About 1st April, 1915, while I was at Chihuahua, I got a telegram from Jebsen asking me to proceed at once to Los Angeles. I met Jebsen there. He asked me if I cared to proceed to San José del Cabo on the _Maverick_ and then transfer to another ship, the _Annie Larsen_, either at San José del Cabo or at any other point on the Mexican coast. He told me that the _Annie Larsen’s_ cargo consisted of war material, which was to be transhipped to the _Maverick_ at whatever point they should meet in Mexican or Central American waters; that a man named Page (I do not remember his initials, but perhaps they were A. W.) who would be on the _Annie Larsen_, was to take charge of the _Maverick_, and that I myself was to take over the _Annie Larsen_ and proceed to trade with her in whatever manner I might wish to, for six months, between Mexican or Central American ports, but I was not to return to any American port until after the expiration of six months. He did not tell me why the _Annie Larsen_ was not to return to an American port for six months, but the reason was quite clear to me. As a matter of fact, I had heard while I was in Chihuahua that the _Annie Larsen_ had departed from San Diego with a cargo of war material, presumably for some belligerent faction in Mexico. She had cleared from San Diego for Topolobampo. This fact had given rise to considerable comment and notoriety. American papers had taken the matter up, and the several arrests of Americans and Mexicans made