Abie waited at the shore end of Meigg’s wharf for the mate to return from the whaler Bowhead. He had done remarkably well in the matter of getting Captain Gully a crew. There remained one more man to secure. The crimp had his pride. He had promised six. The rain was a dampener to his hopes of getting this man. It would be useless to send out anybody except one who feared the law more than a whaling voyage. Yetsky, Angel Face, Hong Kee and the two coolies would sign any paper at midnight. They did not need to be urged to leave San Francisco. “Having put the fear of Keenon into their hearts,” Abie told Hansen, when the mate came ashore, “we’ll proceed to find the last man. What did Captain Gully say?” “I dank he say nothin’. He is sitting on the booby-hatch holding down the crew.” Abie led the mate toward Mission Street. The two men paused a moment in the shelter of an awning. The soap-box preacher had guided his flock of derelicts into the Beacon Room. The Beacon Room was a long saloon made over into a mission hall. The windows were silvered with Rochelle salts. A tramp stood at the entrance. He shivered in the rain, opened the door, and went inside. The sound of voices came through the transom. They were pitched in many broken keys. “Holy Joe’s Place,” was the name given to the Beacon Light by the denizens of the Barbary Coast. Holy Joe had long been a figure of prominence along the water-front. He took in seamen, runaway apprentices from British ships, and the flotsam of the West Coast. He fed them, prayed for them, and sent them forth strengthened in body and spirit. Abie knew Holy Joe by sight. The missionary and preacher had frequently visited the Blubber Room. It was rumored that he was not averse to taking a drink. There existed an antipathy between the crimp and the preacher. Abie Kelly believed Holy Joe to be a sickening fraud. He had told his mother so. The missionary’s visits to dives and saloons led the crimp to presume he was seeking whisky. Moreover, on one occasion, Abie had seen Holy Joe staggering. “I’ve got my man!” said the crimp. “I won’t need you any more, Hansen. Go to the boat and wait for me.” “I dank I better stay around.” Abie drew himself up to his full height of five feet four inches. “I’ve my man located,” he said. “He’s the preacher--Holy Joe!” The mate shook his blond head. “Did he break a law?” “Break th’ law? He’s lucky to stay out of San Quentin--what I know about him.” Abie knew nothing more about Holy Joe than the Barbary Coast gossip that the missionary was a gad-about and a nuisance. He was anxious to get rid of the mate. The time was short for him to supply Captain Gully with the sixth man. “At the foot of Meigg’s Wharf.”