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Cappy Ricks; Or, the Subjugation of Matt Peasley

by Peter B. Kyne · English · Gutenberg #5738 · 527,496 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Cappy Ricks; Or, the Subjugation of Matt Peasley

Author: Peter B. Kyne


        
Release date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #5738]
                Most recently updated: March 12, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5738

Credits: Produced by Paul J. Hollander, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPPY RICKS; OR, THE SUBJUGATION OF MATT PEASLEY ***




Produced by Paul J. Hollander








CAPPY RICKS

or The Subjugation of Matt Peasley

by Peter B. Kyne




TO THE IDEAL AMERICAN SAILOR

As exemplified in the persons of my good friends,

Captain Ralph E. Peasley, of Jonesport, Maine,

Who skippered the first five-masted schooner ever built, brought her,
on that first voyage, through the worst typhoon that ever blew, and
upon arriving at the Yang Tse Kiang River for the first time in his
adventurous career, decided he could not trust a Chinese pilot and
established a record by sailing her up himself!


Captain I. N. Hibberd, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,

Sometime master of the American clipper ship, Cyrus Wakefield, who, at
the age of twenty-five, broke three world's records in one voyage: San
Francisco to Liverpool and back, eight months and two days; Liverpool
to San Francisco, one hundred days; from the equator to San Francisco,
eleven days. The clipper ship is gone but the skipper remains, an
undefeated champion.


Captain William P. Cantey, of San Francisco, California,

Sometime mate of the brig Galilee, who, with his naked hands,
convinced in thirty-five minutes nine larger men than himself of the
incontrovertible fact that you cannot keep a good man down.



TO THE AMERICAN SHIPOWNER

As exemplified in the persons of my good friends,

John H. Rossiter, Manager of W. R. Grace & Co., of San Francisco.

Edwin A. Christenson, President of the Sudden & Christenson S.S. Line,
of San Francisco.

John R. Hanify, President of the John R. Hanify Company, of San
Francisco.



TO THE PACIFIC COAST LUMBERMAN

As exemplified in the person of my good friend,

Augustus J. (“Gus”) Russell, California Manager for the Portland
Lumber Company, and my personal representative, without salary, in the
wholesale lumber trade, ever since I abandoned lumber for literature.



TO FREIGHT, SHIP, AND MARINE INSURANCE BROKERS

As exemplified in the persons of my good friends,

Messrs. E. B. Smith, Oscar J. Beyfuss, and Allan Hayes.


This volume is dedicated, without charge for the advertising but with
profound appreciation of the part they have made in making this book
possible. With the author they must bear an equal burden of whatever of
praise or censure shall entail.



CONTENTS

I. Master of Many Ships and Skipper of None
II. The Man from Blue Water
III. Under the Blue Star Flag
IV. Bad News from Cape Town
V. Matt Peasley Assumes Office
VI. Wordy War at a Dollar a Word
VII. Cappy Ricks Makes Bad Medicine
VIII. All Hands and Feet to the Rescue
IX. Mr. Murphy Advises Preparedness
X. The Battle of Table Bay
XI. Mr. Skinner Receives a Telegram
XII. The Campaign Opens
XIII. An Old Friend Returns and Cappy Leads Another Ace
XIV. Insult Added to Injury
XV. Rumors of War
XVI. War!
XVII. Cappy Forces an Armistice
XVIII. The War is Renewed
XIX. Capp Seeks Peace
XX. Peace at Last!
XXI. Matt Peasley Meets a Talkative Stranger
XXII. Face to Face
XXIII. Business and--
XXIV. The Clean Up
XXV. Cappy Proves Himself a Despot
XXVI. Matt Peasley in Exile
XXVII. Promotion
XXVIII. Cappy Has a Heart
XXIX. Nature Takes Her Course
XXX. Mr. Skinner Hears a Lecture
XXXI. Internal Combustion
XXXII. Skinner Proposes--and Cappy Ricks Disposes
XXXIII. Cappy's Plans Demolished
XXXIV. A Gift From the Gods
XXXV. A Dirty Yankee Trick
XXXVI. Cappy Forbids the Bans--Yet
XXXVII. Matt Peasley Becomes a Shipowner
XXXVIII. Working Capital
XXXIX. Easy Money
XL. The Cataclysm
XLI. When Pain and Anguish Wring the Brow
XLII. Unexpected Developments
XLIII. Cappy Plans a Knock-out
XLIV. Skinner Develops into a Human Being
XLV. Cappy Pulls Off a Wedding
XLVI. A Ship Forgotten
XLVII. The Tail Goes with the Hide
XLVIII. Victory




CHAPTER I. MASTER OF MANY SHIPS AND SKIPPER OF NONE


A psychologist would have termed Alden P. Ricks an individualist, but
his associates in the wholesale lumber and shipping trade of the Pacific
Coast proclaimed him a character.

In his youth he had made one voyage round Cape Horn as a cabin boy, his
subsequent nautical experience having been confined to the presidency of
the Blue Star Navigation Company and occasional voyages as a first-cabin
passenger. Notwithstanding this apparent lack of salt-water wisdom,
however, his intimate knowledge of ships and the men who go down to the
sea in them, together with his very distinct personality, had conduced
to provide him with a courtesy title in his old age.

It is more than probable that, had Alden P. Ricks been a large,
commanding person possessed of the dignity the average citizen
associates with men of equal financial rating, the Street would have
called him Captain Ricks. Had he lacked these characteristics, but borne
nevertheless even a remote resemblance to a retired mariner, his world
would have hailed him as Old Cap Ricks; but since he was what he was--a
dapper, precise, shrewd, lovable little old man with mild, paternal
blue eyes, a keen sense of humor and a Henry Clay collar, which latter,
together with a silk top hat, had distinguished him on 'Change for forty
years--it was inevitable that along the Embarcadero and up California
Street he should bear the distinguishing appellation of Cappy. In any
other line of human endeavor he would have been called Pappy--he was
that type of man.

Cappy Ricks had so much money, amassed in the wholesale lumber and
shipping business, that he had to engage some very expensive men to
take care of it for him. He owned the majority of the stock of the Ricks
Lumber and Logging Company, with sawmills and timberlands in California,
Oregon and Washington; his young men had to sell a million feet of
lumber daily in order to keep pace with the output, while the vessels
of the Blue Star Navigation Company, also controlled by Cappy, freighted
it. There were thirty-odd vessels in the Blue Star fleet--windjammers
and steam schooners; and Cappy was registered as managing owner of every
one.

Following that point in his career when the young fellows on the Street,
discovering that he was a true-blue sport, had commenced to fraternize
with him and call him Cappy, the old gentleman ceased to devote his
attention to the details of his business. He was just beginning to enjoy
life; so he shifted the real work of his multifarious interests to the
capable shoulders of a Mr. John P. Skinner, who fitted into his niche
in the business as naturally as the kernel of a healthy walnut fits its
shell. Mr. Skinner was a man still on the sunny side of middle life,
smart, capable, cold-blooded, a little bumptious, and, like the late
Julius Caesar, ambitious.

No sooner had Cappy commenced to take life easy than Skinner commenced
to dominate the business. He attended an efficiency congress and came
home with a collection of newfangled ideas that eliminated from the
office all the joy and contentment old Cappy Ricks had been a life-time
installing. He inaugurated card systems and short cuts in bookkeeping
that drove Cappy to the verge of insanity, because he could never go to
the books himself and find out anything about his own business. He had
to ask Mr. Skinner--which made Skinner an important individual.

With the passage of five years the general manager was high and low
justice in Cappy's offices, and had mastered the not-too-difficult art
of dominating his employer, for Cappy seldom seriously disagreed with
those he trusted. He saved all his fighting force for his competitors.

However, Cappy's interest in the Blue Star Navigation Company did not
wane with the cessation of his activities as chief kicker. Ordinarily,
Mr. Skinner bossed the navigation company as he bossed the lumber
business, for Cappy's private office was merely headquarters for
receiving mail, reading the newspapers, receiving visitors, smoking an
after-luncheon cigar, and having a little nap from three o'clock until
four, at which hour Cappy laid aside the cares of business and put in
two hours at bridge in his club.

Despite this apparent indifference to business, however, Mr. Skinner
handled the navigation company with gloves; for, if Cappy dozed in his
office, he had a habit of keeping one eye open, so to speak, and every
little while he would wake up and veto an order of Skinner's, of which
the latter would have been willing to take an oath Cappy had never
heard. In the matter of engaging new skippers or discharging old ones
Mr. Skinner had to be very careful. Cappy always declared that any
clerk can negotiate successfully a charter at the going rates in a
stiff market, but skippers are, in the final analysis, the Genii of the
Dividends. And Cappy knew skippers. He could get more loyalty out
of them with a mere pat on the back and a kindly word than could Mr.
Skinner, with all his threats, nagging and driving, yet he was an
employer who demanded a full measure of service, and never permitted
sentiment to plead for an incompetent. And his ships were his pets; in
his affections they occupied a position but one degree removed from
that occupied by his only child, in consequence of which he was mighty
particular who hung up his master's ticket in the cabin of a Blue
Star ship. Some idea of the scrupulous care with which he examined all
applicants for a skipper's berth may be gleaned from the fact that any
man discharged from a Blue Star ship stood as much chance of obtaining a
berth with one of Cappy Ricks' competitors as a celluloid dog chasing an
asbestos cat through Hades.

The reader will readily appreciate, therefore, the apprehensions which
assailed Cappy Ricks when the Blue Star Navigation Company discovered it
had on its payroll one Matthew Peasley, a Nobody from Nowhere, who not
only had the insufferable impudence to apply for a job skippering the
finest windjammer in the fleet, but when rebuffed in no uncertain terms,
refused to withdraw his application, and defied his owners to fire him.
Such a preposterous state of affairs borders so closely on the realm of
fancy as to require explanation; hence, for the nonce let us leave Cappy
Ricks and Mr. Skinner to their sordid task of squeezing dividends out
of the Blue Star Navigation Company and turn the searchlight of inquiry
upon the amazing Matthew.



CHAPTER II. THE MAN FROM BLUE WATER


If, instead of advancing the theory that man sprang from a monkey,
Darwin had elected to nominate the duck for that dubious honor, there
is no doubt but that he would have pointed to the Peasley family,
of Thomaston, Maine, as evidence of the correctness of his theory of
evolution. The most casual student of natural history knows that the
instant a duckling chips its shell it toddles straightway to the nearest
water. The instant a male Peasley could cut his mother's apron strings,
he, also, made for the nearest water, for the Peasleys had always been
sailors, a statement which a perusal of the tombstones in Thomaston
cemetery will amply justify. Indeed, a Peasley who had not acquired
his master's ticket prior to his twenty-fifth birthday was one of two
things--a disgrace to the family or a corpse. Consequently, since the
traditions of his tribe were very strong in Matthew Peasley VI, it
occasioned no comment in Thomaston when, having acquired a grammar
school education, he answered the call of his destiny and fared forth to
blue water and his first taste of dog's body and salt horse.

When he was fourteen years old and very large for his age, Matt
commenced his apprenticeship in a codfisher on the Grand Banks, which,
when all is said and done, constitutes the finest training school in the
world for sailors. By the time he was seventeen he had made one voyage
to Rio de Janeiro in a big square-rigger out of Portland; and so smart
and capable an A.B. was he for his years that the Old Man took a shine
to him. Confidentially he informed young Matt that if the latter would
stay by the ship, in due course a billet as third mate should be the
reward of his fealty. The Old Man didn't need a third mate any more than
he needed a tail, but Matt Peasley looked like a comer to him and he
wanted an excuse to encourage the boy by berthing him aft; also it
sounds far better to be known as a third mate instead of a mate's bosun,
which was, in reality, the position the Old Man had promised Matt. The
latter promptly agreed to this program and the skipper loaned him his
copy of Bowditch.

Upon his return from his first voyage as third mate Matt went up for his
second mate's certificate and passed very handily. Naturally he expected
prompt promotion, but the Old Man knew the value of experience in a
second mate--also the value of years and physical weight; so he informed
young Matt he was entirely too precocious and that to sail as second
mate before he was nineteen might tend to swell his ego. Consequently
Matt made a voyage to Liverpool and back as third mate before the Old
Man promoted him.

For a year, Matt Peasley did nicely; then, in a gale off the Orinoco
River, with the captain too ill to appear on deck, the first mate went
by the board, leaving the command of the ship to young Matt. She was
dismasted at the time, but the lad brought her into Rio on the stumps,
thus attracting some little attention to himself from his owners, who
paid his passage back to Portland by steamer and found a second mate's
berth for him in one of their clipper ships bound round the Horn.

Of course Matt was too young to know they had their eyes on him for
future skipper material and were sending him around Cape Horn for
the invaluable experience he would encounter on such a voyage. All he
realized was that he was going round the Horn, as became one of the
House of Peasley, no member of which would ever regard him as a real
sailor until he could point to a Cape Horn diploma as evidence that he
had graduated from the school for amateurs.

Matt Peasley lacked two months of his twentieth birthday when he
stepped onto a San Francisco dock, in his pocket a highly complimentary
discharge as second mate from the master of the clipper ship--for Matt
had elected to quit. In fact, he had to, for on the way round the mate
had picked on him and called him Sonny and Mother's Darling Boy; and
Matt, having, in the terminology of the forecastle, come aboard through
the hawse pipes, knew himself for a man and a sailor, despite the
paucity of whiskers on his big, square boyish chin.

Accordingly he had advised the mate to address him only in the line of
duty, on which occasions he desired to be referred to as Mr. Peasley,
and, the mate demurring from this program, the customary maritime
fracas had ensued. Consequently, somebody had to quit on arrival at San
Francisco; and since, Matt was the last to come, he was the first to go.
On the strength of his two previous discharges he shipped as second mate
on the bark Andrew Welch, for a voyage to Honolulu and back; then, his
services as second mate being all in, he went before the inspectors for
his first mate's ticket and was awarded an unlimited license.

Matt was now past twenty; and, though not fully filled out, he was big
enough to be a chief kicker anywhere. Six feet three in his bare feet;
two hundred pounds in the buff; lean, lithe and supple as a panther, the
mere sight of his big lumpy shoulders would have been sufficient to have
quelled an incipient mutiny. Nevertheless, graduate that he was of
a hard, hard school, his face was that of an innocent, trusting,
good-natured, immature boy, proclaiming him exactly what he knew his
men called him--a big, over-grown kid. He hated himself for his glorious
youth.

“You're pretty much of a child to have an unlimited ticket, my son,” the
supervising inspector informed him. “However, you've had the experience
and your record is far above the average, so we're going to issue the
license; but if you'll take a bit of advice from an old sailor you'll
be content to go as second mate for a year or two more, until your jowls
blacken up a bit and you get a trifle thicker in the middle.”

With the impudence and irreverence of his tender years, however, Matt
Peasley scorned this well-meant advice, notwithstanding the fact that he
knew it to be sound, for by shipping as second mate and remaining in the
same ship, sooner or later his chance would come. The first mate would
quit, or be promoted or drowned, or get drunk; and then his shoes would
be waiting for Matt tried and true, and the holder of a first mate's
ticket.

However, there is an old saw to the effect that youth must be served,
and young Matt desired a helping totally disproportionate to his years,
if not to his experience; hence he elected to ignore the fact that
shipmasters are wary of chief mates until they have first tried them out
as second mates and learned their strength and their weaknesses. Being
very human, Matt thought he should prove the exception to a fairly
hard-and-fast rule.

He had slept one night on a covered dock and skipped three meals before
it occurred to him that he had pursued the wrong tactics. He was too far
from Thomaston, Maine, where the majority of sailors have gone to school
with their captains. Back home there were a dozen masters who knew his
people, who knew him and his proved ability; but out here on the Pacific
Coast the skippers were nearly all Scandinavians, and Matt had to show
them something besides his documents.

He had failed signally to procure a single opportunity to demonstrate
his fitness for an executive position. After abandoning his plan to ship
as chief mate he had sought a second mate's berth, but failing to
find one, and with each idle day making deeper inroads into his scant
savings, he had at length descended to the ignominy of considering a job
as bosun. Even that was not forthcoming, and now his money was entirely
dissipated.

Now, when a big overgrown kid finds himself penniless three thousand
miles from a friend and minus three meals in succession, the fourth
omission of the daily bread is not likely to pass without violent
protest. Matt was still a growing boy, with a growing boy's appetite;
consequently on the morning of his second day of fasting he came to
the conclusion that, with so much of his life before him, a few months
wasted would, after all, have no material bearing on his future; so
he accepted a two months advance from a crimp and shipped aboard the
American barkentine Retriever as a common A.B.--a most disgraceful
action on the part of a boy, who, since eighteenth birthday, had been
used to having old sailors touch their foretop to him and address him as
“Mr. Peasley, sir.”



CHAPTER III. UNDER THE BLUE STAR FLAG


Matt had been attracted to the barkentine Retriever for two very potent
reasons--the first was a delicious odor of stew emanating from her
galley; the second was her house flag, a single large, five-pointed blue
star on a field of white with scarlet trimming. Garnished left and right
with a golden wreath and below with the word Captain, Matt Peasley knew
that house flag, in miniature, would look exceedingly well on the front
of a uniform cap; for he now made up his mind to enter one service and
stick to it until his abilities should receive their inevitable reward.
To ship as a foremast hand and rise to captain would be a proud record;
so Matt throttled his pride and faced the future with confidence, and a
stomach quite filled with very good beef stew.

From the cook he learned that the Retriever carried a million feet of
lumber; that she was owned by Cappy Ricks; that Cappy Ricks was the
president of the Blue Star Navigation Company, and the most contemptible
old scoundrel in all the world; that the skipper was a blue-nose and
a devil and a fine man rolled into one; that the barkentine could sail
like a yacht; and that presently they would up-hook and off to Grays
Harbor, Washington, there to load a cargo of fir lumber for Cape Town.
And would Matt mind slipping ashore and buying the cook a bottle of
whiskey, for which the latter would settle very minute he could get an
advance out of the Old Man. No? Disgusted, the cook rattled his pans and
dismissed Matt as one unworthy of further confidence.

Just before the tug came alongside to snake her outside the Heads, the
mate came aboard with his lee rail pretty well under and was indiscreet
enough to toss a piece of his lip at the Old Man. Five minutes later he
was paid and off and kicked out on the dock, while the cook packed his
sea bag and tossed it overside after him. The captain, thereupon, bawled
for the second mate, who came running. Matt noticed this and decided
that should the Old Man ever bawl for him he would come running too.

“Mr. Swenson, you have a chief mate's license, have you not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. You're the first mate. Mr. Lindstrom”--turning to the
bosun--“you've waited a year for your chance, and here it is. You're
the second mate. Bosun!” He was looking straight at Matt Peasley as he
spoke. Matt did not stir. “Hey, there,” the skipper roared, “you big
mountain of meat, step lively!”

Matt stepped lively.

“I am not the bosun, sir,” he explained. “I'm just A.B.”

“How dare you contradict me?” the Old Man growled. “I tell you, you
don't know what you are yet, barring the fact that you're an American,
and the only one, with the exception of myself, in the whole damned
Scowegian crew. Do you think you could get away with a bosun's job?”

“I could get away with your job if I had the chance, sir,” Matt
declared, almost impudently.

“There she blows!” the Old Man declared. “Bless me, if you're not a
Native Son! Nobody but a Native Son would be that fresh. I suppose this
is your second voyage, you puling baby?”

Matt Peasley's dander was up instantly.

“I'm sailor enough to know my way alow or aloft in any weather, sir,” he
retorted.

The captain saw his opening and struck.

“What's the ring-tail?” he demanded.

“It's a studdin'-s'l on the gaff of a fore-an'-aft, sail, sir. You
haven't got one on the Retriever, sir.”

“Huh! You've been reading W. Clark Russell's sea yarns,” the skipper
charged. “He was quite a pen-an'-paper sailor when it came to
square-rigged ships, but he didn't have much to say about six-masted
schooners. You see, they didn't build them in his day. Now then, son,
name the sticks on a six-legged schooner, and be sure and name 'em
right.”

“Fore, main, mizzen, spanker, jigger and driver, sir,” Matt fired back
at him.

“Bully for you, my son. You're the third mate. Cappy Ricks allows me the
luxury of a third mate whenever I run across a young fellow that appears
to be worth a whoop in hell, so grab your duds, and go aft, and
don't bring any cockroaches with you. I'll dig up a bosun among the
squareheads.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Name?”

“Mr. Peasley, sir.”

Since he was no longer an A B., young Matt concluded he might as well
accord himself the respect due him as a ship's officer; so he tacked on
the Mister, just to show the Old Man he knew his place. The master noted
that; also, the slurring of the sir as only a sailor can slur it.

“I shouldn't wonder if you'd do,” he remarked as Matt passed him on his
way to the forecastle for his dunnage.

On his way back he carried his bag over his shoulder and his framed
license in his left hand. Two savages were following with his sea chest.

“I do declare!” the skipper cried. “If that lubberly boy hasn't got some
sort of a ticket! Let me see it, Mr. Peasley.” And he snatched it out of
his grasp.

“So, you're a first mate of sail, for any ocean and any tonnage, eh?”
 he said presently. “Are you sure this ticket doesn't belong to your
father?”

“Sir,” declared the exasperated Matt, “I never asked you for this job
of third mate; and if I've got to stomach your insults to hold it down
I don't want it. That's my ticket and I'm fully capable of living up to
it.”

“I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Peasley, because if you're not I'll be the
first one to find it out--and don't you forget it! I'll have no marine
impostors aboard my ship. Where do they ship little boys before the
mast, Mr. Peasley?”

“On the Grand Banks, sir.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the skipper; “but really I thought you were a
Native Son. My father was drowned there thirty years ago.”

“The Peasleys have all died on the Banks sir,” Matt replied, much
mollified.

“We'll go down into my cabin and drink a toast to their memory, Mr.
Peasley. It isn't often we skippers out here meet one of our own.”

It is hard for a Down-Easter, even though he may have lost the speech of
his people, not to be, partial to his own; and Captain Noah Kendall, of
the barkentine Retriever, was all the cook had declared him to be. He
scolded his Norsk mates so bitterly while the vessel was taking on cargo
at Grays Harbor that both came and asked for their time an hour before
the vessel sailed. However, the old man was aware they would do this,
for he had handled that breed too long not to know that the Scandinavian
sailor on the Pacific Coast quits his job on the slightest pretext, but
never dreams of leaving until he knows that by so doing he can embarrass
the master or owners. Even if the mates had not quit, Kendall would have
discharged them, for it had been in his mind to try Matt Peasley out as
chief mate, and acquire a second mate with a sweeter disposition than
that possessed by the late incumbent.

No sooner had the Norsk mates departed than Captain Noah Kendall paid a
visit to Captain McBride in command of the schooner Nokomis (also a
Blue Star vessel), which had arrived that day and was waiting for the
Retriever's berth at the mill dock, in order to commence loading.

“Mac,” quoth Captain Noah, “what kind of a second mate have you got?”

“A no-good Irish hound named Murphy,” McBride replied promptly, for
he had heard rumors of war aboard the Retriever and something told him
Kendall had come to borrow his second mate, in order that the Retriever
might tow out immediately. A canny, cunning lad was McBride, but for all
his Scotch blood he was no match for Captain Noah Kendall.

“I heard he wasn't worth two squirts of bilge water,” Captain Noah lied
glibly. “However, I'll take him off your hands and reimburse you for
the expense of bringing his successor down from Seattle or up from San
Francisco. My two mates have just asked to be paid off, and despite the
fact that they have signed articles, I've let them go. No use going to
sea with a pair of sulky mates, you know. Fortunately, I had a young
Down-Easter aboard and I've put him in as first mate--”

“Noah,” urged McBride. “I wouldn't advise you to take this man Murphy.”

“Beggars can't be choosers,” Captain Noah replied mournfully. “The tide
serves in half an hour and the tug is alongside the Retriever now. If
I have to wire to Seattle for a second mate I may not be able to get
one--and if I am forced to wire to San Francisco I may be stuck here a
week. I've shipped my crew and paid them all in advance, and if I don't
get to sea in an hour I'll lose every man Jack of them, and have it all
to do over again.”

“Well, I'll speak to the fellow for you, Noah,” McBride suggested, and
darted out of the cabin to interview the said Murphy. Two minutes later
he was back.

“Sorry, Noah, but Murphy says he wouldn't sign up for a trip to Cape
Town at chief mate's wages.”

“I'm sorry, too, Mac,” Captain Noah answered resignedly. “I'm sorry
you're such a liar. My grief is only compensated by the knowledge that
Murphy is not aboard the Nokomis at this minute, and, if you did any
talking while you were out on deck a minute ago you must have talked
to yourself. Do I get this man, Murphy and thus save the Blue Star
Navigation Company five hundred dollars or must I wire Cappy Ricks to
wire you to do your duty by the company?”

“You infernal thief,” shouted McBride, “you're taking the best second
mate I've had in years.”

“Never mind that. Do I get Mike Murphy peaceably or--”

“You've got him already” McBride charged.

“You're better at telling the truth than you are at lying, Angus
McBride. You'll have plenty of time to get a second mate while the
Nokomis is loading, and you can send the bill for his railroad fare to
Cappy Ricks and tell him to charge it to the Retriever.”

McBride tried to appear aggrieved, but failed. He burst out laughing,
and reached for the locker in which he kept the schooner's supply of
grog.

“Would it was prussic acid,” he growled.

“Don't say I went behind your back and stole your mate,” Kendall
retorted. “And if your second mate is as poor as your whiskey,” he
added, piling insult on to injury, “you can have him back when I return
from Cape Town.”

Matt Peasley felt that he was going to like Michael J. Murphy. The
latter was Irish, but he had left Ireland at a very tender age and was,
to all intents and purposes, a breezy American citizen, and while he
wore a slight cauliflower in one ear, his broad, kindly humorous face
and alert, bustling manner was assurance that he would be an easy man to
get along with. When the Old Man introduced him to Matt, he extended a
horny right hand that closed on Matt's like the jaws of a dredger, the
while he ran an equally horny left hand up and down the chief mate's
arm.

“I'm sure we'll get along famously together, Mr. Murphy,” Matt
suggested.

Again Mr. Murphy ran his hand over that great arm.

“You know it!” he declared with conviction.

Captain Noah laughed aloud, and as Matt scampered forward over the
deckload, herding his savages before him, to receive the tug's breast
line and make it fast on the bitts the skipper turned to Mr. Murphy.

“There's a lad for you,” he declared.

“He has manners and muscle, and those are two things that seldom go
together,” Mr. Murphy rejoined. “He's Down-Easter, I see. Did Cappy
Ricks send him to you, sir?”

“No--not that he wouldn't, however, if he'd ever met the boy. The crimp
brought him aboard with the sweepings and scrapings of San Francisco.”

“I hope he wasn't drunk--like the rest,” Mr. Murphy answered anxiously.
“'Twould be a sin to desecrate that lovely body with whiskey.”

“He was bung up and bilge free--and that's why he's chief kicker now.
The hawser's fast for'd, Mr. Murphy. Cast off your stern line.”

“All clear for'd, sir,” Matt Peasley's shout came ranging down the wind,
and the tug snatched the big barkentine out from the mill dock into the
stream where she cast her off, put her big towing hawser aboard, paid it
out and started for Grays Harbor bar.



CHAPTER IV. BAD NEWS FROM CAPE TOWN


On a certain day in February Mr. Skinner, coming into Cappy Ricks'
office with a cablegram in his hand, found his employer doubled up at
his desk and laughing in senile glee.

“I have a cablegram--” Mr. Skinner began.

“I have a good story,” Cappy interrupted. “Let me tell it to you,
Skinner. Oh, dear! I believe this is about going to kill the boys up on
'Change when I tell them.” He wiped his eyes, controlled his mirth and
turned to the general manager. “Skinner,” he said, “did you know I had
gotten back into the harness while you were up at the Astoria mill? Well
I did, Skinner. I had to, you know. If it was the last act of my life I
had to square accounts with that man Hudner, of the Black Butte Lumber
Company.”

Mr. Skinner nodded. He was aware of the feud that existed between Cappy
and Hudner, and the reasons therefor. The latter had stolen from Cappy a
stenographer, who had grown to spinsterhood in his employ--one of those
rare stenographers who do half a man's thinking for him. Cappy always
paid a little more than the top of the market for clever service; and
whenever, a competitor stole one of his favorite employees, sooner or
later that competitor paid for his sins, “through the nose.”

“While you were away,” Cappy went on, “I met Hudner a luncheon.
'Hudner,' I said, 'It's been my experience that nobody gets anything
good in this world without paying for it--and you stole the finest
stenographer I ever had. So I'm going to make you pay for her. See if I
don't.' Well, sir, Skinner, he laughed at me and told me to go as far as
I liked; and, a number of my youthful friends being present, they each
bet Hudner a five-dollar hat I'd hang his hide on my fence within sixty
days.

“Well, Skinner, you know me. Any time it's raining duck soup you'll
never catch me out with a fork; and, of course, when the boys showed
such faith in my ability to trim Hudner I had to make good. I have a
letter from Hudner to prove it; and to-day at luncheon, when we're all
gathered at the Round Table, I'm going to read that letter and my reply
to the same; and Hudner will have fifty dollars' worth of hat bills to
pay!”

“How did you tan his pelt?” Skinner queried.

“Easy! While you were away I chartered his steamer Chehalis for a load
of redwood lumber from Humboldt Bay to San Francisco at three dollars
and a half a thousand feet. Of course, you know a boat like the
Chehalis, with a big pay-roll, will break just even on such a low
freight rate; but inasmuch as he was going to lay the Chehalis up in
Oakland Creek, owing to lack of business, when I offered him a load of
redwood he concluded to take it, just to keep the vessel moving and pay
expenses. I stipulated discharge in San Francisco Bay.

“Well, sir, when the Chehalis got to our mill, Skinner, I ordered them
to load her with sinkers--oh! oh, this will be the death of me yet,
Skinner. And we gave her poor dispatch in loading. Then she had to lay
behind the bar two days longer before she could cross out; and when she
got here I ordered her to discharge into the British bark Glengarry--and
discharging from one vessel in to another is the slowest work in the
world. And Hudner--he's--written--me, Skinner, declaring he'll never
charter a boat to me again; says the Chehalis lost two thousand dollars
on the voyage.” And Cappy went off into a gale of laughter, and handed
Skinner the letter to read.

For the benefit of the reader, who may desire a closer insight into
Cappy's Machiavellian nature, be it known that a sinker is a heavy,
close-grained clear redwood butt-log, which, if cut in the spring,
when the tree is alive with sap, is so heavy it will not float in the
millpond; hence the term sinker. A vessel laden with lumber sawed from
sinkers, therefore, will carry just fifty per cent. of her customary
cargo; and unless the freight rate be extremely high, she cannot make
money.

“Do you know, Skinner,” Cappy announced presently, “I think you'd better
hunt up a steady job for me! Dadding it, boy, I never knew there was so
much fun in business until I had practically retired! Really, Skinner, I
must take more interest in my affairs.”

“Here's something to sharpen your teeth on, Mr. Ricks,” the general
manager replied, and presented the cablegram he had been holding for
five minutes.

Cappy took it and read, thereby becoming aware for the first time, that
he had in his employ an individual by the name of Matthew Peasley.

                            Cape Town, February 15, --.

  Bluestar, San Francisco:

  Captain knifed Kru boy argument boat fare.  Instruct consignees
  honor my drafts as captain.

                            Matthew Peasley, Mate.

“The murdering black hound!” Cappy murmured in an awed voice. “If he
hasn't gone and killed the best skipper I ever had! Poor Kendall! Why,
Noah and I were good friends, Skinner. Every time the Retriever touched
in at her home port I always had Noah Kendall up to the house for
dinner, and we went to the theatre together afterward. Thank God! It
isn't a week since his life insurance premium fell due and I had the
cashier pay it.”

Cappy sat gazing dejectedly at the carpet.

“Poor old Cap'n Noah!” he soliloquized aloud. “Twenty-five years you
sailed under the Blue Star, and in all that time there was never once
when I had to jack up and tell you to 'tend to business. And, Noah, you
could make a suit of sails last longer than any man I ever knew; but you
did have a hell of a temper.” And having delivered this touching eulogy
on the late Captain Kendall, Cappy roused himself and faced Skinner.

“I should say I have a job on my hands,” he announced, “with the finest
sailing ship in the fleet down in South Africa without a skipper!
Skinner, I'll tell you what you do, my boy: You dictate the nicest
letter you know how to dictate to Noah's widow, up in Port Townsend.
Tell her how much we thought of Noah and extend our sympathy, and a
check for his next three months' salary. Put her on my private pension
list, Skinner, and send her Cap'n Noah's salary every quarter-day as
long as she lives. Tell her we'll attend to the collection of the life
insurance and will bring Noah's body home to Port Townsend at our own
expense. It's the least we can do, Skinner. He was the only skipper I
ever had who did not, at one time or another, manage to embroil me in a
lawsuit. Who are our consignees at Cape Town?”

“The Harlow & Benton Company, Limited.”

“Cable them for confirmation of the mate's message, and request them
to have Cap'n Noah's body embalmed and shipped to Port Townsend,
Washington, prepaid, deducting charges from our invoice.”



CHAPTER V. MATT PEASLEY ASSUMES OFFICE


The death of Captain Noah Kendall, while profoundly deplored by his next
in command, first mate Matthew Peasley, had not been permitted by that
brisk young man to interfere in the least with the task of getting
the cargo out of the Retriever, for sailoring, like soldiering, is a
profession in which sentiment is a secondary consideration. Each day
of demurrage to a ship like the Retriever, even at the prevailing low
freight rate, meant a loss of at least a hundred dollars to the owners,
and since navigating a ship safely and expeditiously is the least of a
good skipper's duties, and since, further, Matt Peasley was determined
to be a skipper in the not very distant future, he concluded to give
his owners evidence of the fact that he was, in addition to being a
navigator, also a first-class “hustler.” If the Retriever made a loss on
that voyage he was resolved that no blame should attach to him.

“Skipper's dead, Mike,” he announced to Mr. Murphy, the second mate.
“Policeman in a small boat alongside says the old man got into a row
with the Kru boy that rowed him ashore and the black scoundrel skewered
him. I'm going ashore to look after his body and order a tug to kick
us into our berth. I guess the old man didn't get time to attend to the
business that brought him ashore, poor fellow.”

“Very well, Sir,” Mr. Murphy replied, and murmured some commonplace
expression of regret. He was not particularly shocked for he had lost
shipmates in a hurry before now.

Matt Peasley proceeded to the beach, attended to the necessary details
incident to the skipper's untimely removal, was informed by the Harlow
& Benton Company, Limited, of the location of the berth he was to
discharge, ordered a tug for that afternoon, went to the cable office,
registered his cable address, sent a cablegram to the owners and
returned to the ship.

“Well, Mike,” he announced to the second mate, “I guess I'm the skipper;
following the same line of deduction, I guess you're the chief mate, so
I'll move my dunnage into the old man's cabin and you move into mine.
I'll pick up a second mate in Cape Town before we leave.”

Mr. Murphy eyed his youthful superior with mild curiosity, not
untempered with amusement. “Thank you for the promotion, Captain Matt,”
 he replied. “However, if you'll excuse my apparent impudence on the
grounds that I'm about fifteen years older than you and have been longer
in the Blue Star employ, I'd like to make a suggestion.”

“Fire away, Mike.”

Mr. Murphy hitched his belt, walked to the rail, spat tobacco juice from
between his fingers and came back. “You're the youngest chief mate I've
ever seen, and this is your first berth in that capacity,” he began.
“Suppose you hang on to it and don't be so infernally generous.”

“But you have a first mate's license, haven't you?”

“Certainly. But--”

“No ifs or buts, Mike. The skipper's dead; I was first mate;
consequently I take command of the ship, and by virtue of my authority
I appoint you first mate. That goes. You'll do one of two things, Mike.
You'll be first mate or get out of the ship.”

Michael J. Murphy grinned. “You mean that?”

“Naturally.”

“If you stick by that determination you'll find yourself on the beach
in Cape Town, unless you conclude to take my recently vacated berth as
second mate. And I'd hate like the devil to have you do that. There's
neither sense nor profit for you in swapping jobs with me.”

“But I tell you I'm going to be skipper.”

“I know--until old Cappy Ricks sends down a relief captain. If you
promote me now, the relief captain may conclude to retain me as first
mate and then you'd have to take my job or quit the ship; and of course
I wouldn't care to have that happen. I'd have to quit the ship, too. I
wouldn't care to do that. I've made up my mind to sail under the Blue
Star flag for the rest of my natural life and I'd hate to have to change
my mind.”

“I've made up my mind to the same thing, Mike, and I know I'm not going
to change my mind.”

“Well, then, Matt, you stick in your first mate's berth and I'll be
satisfied with my second mate's berth.”

“I suppose you'll say next that the relief skipper will be happy in
poor old Captain Noah's berth, eh?” Matt interrupted. He grinned at Mr.
Murphy.

“Mike, listen to me. There isn't going to be any relief skipper. You're
going back to Hoquiam, Grays Harbor, Washington, U. S. A., as chief
kicker of the barkentine Retriever, and you're going to take orders from
me all the way. In fact, you might as well begin right now. Take your
duds and move into my cabin.”

“Matt,” Mr. Murphy pleaded earnestly, “you don't know Cappy Ricks, do
you?”

“No, but I'll get acquainted with him in due course. Don't let that
worry you Mike.”

“All right, I won't. But what does worry me is the fact that Cappy Ricks
doesn't know you.

“Does he know you?”

“No.”

“Do you know him?”

“Yes, by proxy. I've heard a lot about him, and that's why I'm in his
employ and resolved to stay there. If a man sails under the Blue
Star flag long enough and behaves himself and displays a little human
intelligence from time to time sooner or later he gets his chance. Cappy
Ricks does all the hiring and firing for the fleet, and whenever he has
a good job to fill, he never goes outside his own employ to fill it. He
always promotes the deserving. You cabled him, of course, that Captain
Kendall has been killed.”

“Yes, I did. And I cabled him also to cable me authority to draw drafts,
as skipper, in order to disburse the vessel.”

“Just like a kid! Just like a kid!” Mr. Murphy groaned. “That finishes
you, Matt. Cappy'll think you're fresh and you'll be ten years proving
to him you are not.”

“It proves I'm on the job,” Matt protested doggedly.

“No matter, Matt. Cappy Ricks will go over the list of his skippers
due for promotion into a larger ship and more pay, and right away he'll
start Captain Noah's successor for Cape Town to bring the ship home.”

“If he does, Mike, he's crazy.”

“Oh, he's crazy enough, Matt, like a fox--so blamed crazy he will not
consider handing over this Retriever to an untried and unknown man who
has been in his employ for less than a voyage. Why, I wouldn't myself.”

“Maybe you think he'll hand her over to you?” Matt asked, with the
suspicion and impetuosity of youth.

“Boy,” said Mr. Murphy patiently, “you're getting into deep water close
to the shore. Starboard your helm and put her on the other tack. If he
gives her to me--which he will not--I'll take her. I've been three years
in his employ. I'm capable--”

“Mike,” Matt interrupted. “I like you fine, but I want to tell you that
if Cappy Ricks cabled you to take charge, I wouldn't let you. I'm next
in command, and it's only etiquette that I should have my chance.”

“Then,” Mr. Murphy murmured sententiously, “there'd be a fight with skin
gloves and I'm afraid you'd get licked, son. I wasted a good many years
in the navy, Matt, and there I learned two things--how to obey and how
to fight with my fists. I was the champion amateur light-heavy-weight of
the Atlantic fleet, and every once in a while something happens to prove
to me that I'm far from being a slouch even at this late date.”

“No offense, Mike. We're crossing our bridges before we come to them,
and besides, I didn't intend to be offensive.”

“I understand. Our conversation was entirely academic,” Murphy admitted
graciously.

“You said you learned to obey in the navy,” Matt suggested. “What's the
matter with obeying my last order?”

“All right, Matt. I'll obey. But remember, I have given you fair
warning. If I move into your cabin to-day, I'll not move out when the
relief skipper comes.”

“I'll take a chance,” said Matt Peasley.



CHAPTER VI. WORDY WAR AT A DOLLAR A WORD


While the capable Mr. Skinner was preparing the reply to Matt Peasley's
cablegram, and dictating for Cappy Ricks' signature a letter to Noah
Kendall's widow, Cappy was busy at the telephone. First he retailed the
news to the Merchants' Exchange, to be bulletined on the blackboard and
read by Captain Noah's friends; next he called up the secretary of the
American Shipmasters' Association, of which the deceased had been a
member, and lastly he communicated the sad tidings to the water-front
reporters of all the daily papers. This detail attended to, Cappy's
active mind returned to more practical and profitable affairs, and he
took up Matt Peasley's cablegram. He was deep in a study of it when Mr.
Skinner entered with the letter to Mrs. Kendall.

“'Captain knifed, killed, Kru boy argument boat fare,'” Cappy read
aloud. “Skinner, my dear boy, what is the cable rate per word to Cape
Town?”

“Ninety-eight cents per word,” replied Mr. Skinner, who had just looked
it up.

“We will if you please, Skinner, confine ourselves to round numbers.
There is such a thing as being too exact. Call it a dollar. Figuring on
that basis, I see this garrulous mate has squandered five dollars of our
money to no purpose--yes, by jingo, more than that. He might have used
the code book! Hum-m-m! Ahem! Harump-h-h-h! Skinner, this fellow will
not do. He is too windy. Skinner, he tells the story in eight words, and
forgets to use his code book. Give me a skipper, Skinner, my boy, who
always has his owner's interest at heart and displays a commendable
discretion in limiting the depredations practiced by the cable company.
For instance, the man Peasley might have omitted the word knifed; also
the explanatory words, argument boat fare, and the word mate. Though
regretting Noah's demise most keenly, as business men we are not
cable-gramically interested in the means employed to accomplish his
removal. Neither do the causes leading up to the tragedy interest us.
The man Peasley should merely have said “Captain murdered.” Also, he
might have trusted to us to realize that when the captain dies the first
mate takes charge. He need not have identified himself--the infernal
chatter-box!”

Cappy read the next sentence. “Instruct consignees honor my drafts as
captain.”

“H'm! Harum-ph! He might have said 'please,' Skinner! Sounds devilishly
like an order, the way he puts it. Though he is temporarily in command
I challenge his right to handle our money until I know more about him.
Harum-ph! Reading between the lines, Skinner, I see he says: 'If you
send a skipper to Cape Town to bring the Retriever home while I'm on the
job, you're crazy.' Look over the vouchers in Cap'n Noah's last report
and let us ascertain how long this forceful mate has been in our
employ.”

Now, the ordinary form of receipt to which a seaman puts his signature
when signing clear bears upon its reverse side a series of blank spaces,
which the captain must fill in. These blanks provide for mention of
the date of signing on, date of discharge, station held on vessel
and remarks. On none of the vouchers of the Retriever's last voyage,
however, did the name of Matthew Peasley appear.

“Must have shipped in San Francisco just before the vessel sailed for
her loading port,” Cappy announced. “Send in a boy.”

One of Cappy's young men was summoned.

“Son,” said Cappy, “you run down, like a good boy, to the office of the
Deputy United States Shipping Commissioner and tell him Mr. Ricks
would like to see the duplicate copy of the crew list of the barkentine
Retriever.”

When an American vessel clears for a foreign port the law required
that her crew shall be signed on before a Deputy United States Shipping
Commissioner, who furnishes a certified copy of the crew list to the
captain and retains a duplicate for his own files.

The Blue Star youth returned presently with his duplicate list, on
consulting which, to his unspeakable amazement, Cappy Ricks discovered
that Matthew Peasley had shipped aboard the Retriever as an able seaman,
and that the first mate was one William Olson--which goes to prove that
in the heat of passion a skipper will often discharge a mate on the eve
of sailing for a foreign port and forget to tell the Deputy Shipping
Commissioner anything about it.

“Remarkable,” Cappy declared. “Ree-markable!”

“Dirty work here,” Mr. Skinner announced. “Captain dead and a common
A.B. cabling us for authority to draw drafts as captain, while posing as
first mate. Nigger in the woodpile somewhere, Mr. Ricks.”

“I'll smoke him out in five minutes, Skinner. Ring up the local
inspectors and inquire if, by any chance, they have ever issued a
captain's license to one Matthew Peasley.”

Skinner obeyed. After a brief wait he was informed that the said Peasley
had an unlimited license as first mate of sail, and was entitled to act
as second mate of steam vessels up to five hundred tons net register.

“Nothing doing!” Cappy piped. “Skinner, when a mate with an unlimited
license ships before the mast, THERE'S A REASON!”

“Drunkard!” Mr. Skinner suggested without an instant's hesitation.

“Eggs-actly, Skinner. Good seaman, I daresay, but worthless and
unreliable in an executive capacity, and I can't trust a ripping fine
barkentine like the Retriever with that kind of man. I suppose he feels
the hankering for a spree coming on right now. Skinner, if we gave the
man Peasley permission to draw drafts he'd paint Cape Town red. I feel
it in my bones.”

“So do I, sir.”

“What vessels have we in port at this moment, Skinner?”

“McBride is discharging the Nokomis at Oakland Long Wharf.”

“The ideal man.” Cappy smote his desk. “I've been wanting to promote Mac
into a larger vessel and pay him twenty-five dollars a month more for
the past two years. He's too good for a little hooker like the Nokomis,
and he's got a steady-going Norwegian mate that's been with him in the
Nokomis for three years. Time to take care of that mate. Skinner, I have
an idea. See that it is carried through. McBride's mate shall buy out
Mac's interest in the Nokomis. If he hasn't the money, tell him I'll
lend it to him, secured by the insurance, provided he and McBride can
come to terms. See that they do. Tell Mac he's to have the Retriever,
and I'll arrange to get Cap'n Noah's interest for him from the estate at
a fair figure. Give him expense money and his credentials and tell him
to start for Cape Town tomorrow night; and cable the man Peasley to
retain charge of the vessel at captain's pay until McBride arrives to
relieve him.”

Mr. Skinner retired to his office and got down his code book. The
general manager knew what he desired to say and hoped he might find
something in the code book to help him say it at cut rates, but
despairing after a diligent search he finally evolved and dispatched
this cablegram to Matt Peasley, addressing it to the cable address of
the Retriever.

                              San Francisco, Feb. 16th, 19--.

  Rickstar,
    Cape Town.

  Peasley, your meager maritime experience renders prohibitive
  compliance request.  Retain charge master's pay pending arrival
  successor.

                                                Bluestar.

Having dispatched his message to Matt Peasley, Mr. Skinner, as he
thought, had dismissed Peasley from his thoughts forever. It would
appear, however, that in this particular the general manager was
counting Mother Carey s chickens before they were hatched. He little
suspected, in his desire to be fair, even at considerable expense, to
inform Matt Peasley just why the Blue Star Navigation Company couldn't
possibly hand over its fine barkentine to a stranger, that he had only
reopened the controversy; that his unfortunate reference to “meager
maritime experience” had flicked Matt Peasley on a raw spot and been
provocative of this reply, received the same day:

                              Cape Town, Feb. 16, 19--.

  Bluestar,
    San Francisco.

  Skipper dying sea foreign port unwritten maritime law
  stipulates mate succeeds.  Yankee can sail anything afloat.
  This my chance.  Grant it or insure successor's life.  Will
  throw him overboard on arrival.

                                                Peasley.

Mr. Skinner promptly carried this defi to Cappy Ricks.

“He's a sea-lawyer,” Cappy piped angrily. “The scoundrel! The
un-mi-ti-ga-ted--scoundrel! Cable him instantly, Skinner, that if he
spends another cent of our money in unnecessary cablegrams I'll fire
him.” He snapped his fingers. “Attend to it, Skinner, attend to it.”

Mr. Skinner attended to it, and the following morning he found this
reply on his desk when he came down to work:

                              Cape Town, Feb. 17, 19--.

  Bluestar,
    San Francisco.

  Holler when you're hit.  Paid for it myself.  Am I to bring
  Retriever home?

                                                Peasley.

“I dare say the fellow did,” Mr. Skinner informed Cappy. “He has four
months' wages coming to him at sixty dollars a month--and if he didn't,
why, I'll instruct McBride to deduct the cable charges from his wages
when he pays him off.”

“I think your reference to his meager maritime experience annoyed him,
Skinner,” Cappy suggested thoughtfully. “It may be that he is a most
excellent sailor. At least, he spends his money like one.”

Cappy had no further comment to make, and the reply to this impudent
communication was accordingly left to Mr. Skinner, who cabled:

                              San Francisco, Feb. 17th, 19--.

  Rickstar,
    Cape Town.

  No!

                                                Bluestar.

“I think that will settle the upstart,” Mr. Skinner declared confidently
as he rang for a messenger boy.

It did not. Four hours later he received this:

                              Cape Town, Feb. 17, 19--.

  Bluestar,
    San Francisco.

  Why?

                                                Peasley.

Now it was a custom of Mr. Skinner's, when a subordinate laid claim
to an inalienable right which the general manager was not willing to
concede, to regard with very grave suspicion that subordinate's loyalty
to the company. If the subordinate protested Mr. Skinner would warn him,
kindly, quietly, but none the less forcefully; and if he persisted Mr.
Skinner would dispense with the services of that subordinate so fast the
offender, nine times out of ten, would be left standing in a sort of
fog and blinking at the suddenness with which the metaphorical can had,
metaphorically speaking, been tied to his caudal appendage. Every
large business office has its Skinner--a queer combination of decency,
honesty, brains and brutality, a worshiper at the shrine of Mammon
in the temple of the great god Business, a reactionary Republican,
treasurer of his church and eventually a total loss from diabetes,
brought on by lack of exercise and worry over trifles.

However, to return to our particular Mr. Skinner and Matt Peasley, the
rebellious. In all justice to Skinner it must be admitted that his first
impulse with reference to Matt Peasley was eminently fair. He really
desired to convey to this persistent person an intimation to the effect
that the latter was, colloquially speaking, monkeying with the buzz-saw
and in imminent danger of having his head lopped off; and he would have
given it, too, provided the delivery of the ultimatum should not
have cost the Blue Star Navigation Company ninety-eight cents a word,
including the address. Consequently, Skinner, always efficient and
realizing that McBride would doubtless be enabled to pick up another
mate in Cape Town, or in a pinch, could dispense with a first mate
altogether, made answer to Matt Peasley as follows:

                              San Francisco, Feb. 17th, 19--.

  Rickstar,
    Cape Town.

  Peasley, you are hereby discharged.  Turn over command second
  mate, call consignees your wages immediately.

                                                Bluestar.

Having dispatched this cablegram and ended it all, as it were, Mr.
Skinner next cast his cold gray glance adown the duplicate crew list
borrowed from the deputy shipping commissioner, and discovered that the
second mate shipped at San Francisco was one Christian Swenson.

“I do hope he's not a drinking man,” Skinner sighed. “The Retriever is
quite a responsibility to entrust to a man we have never seen or
heard of before, but the man Swenson can scarcely be as vicious and
insubordinate as this fellow Peasley, and under the circumstances we'll
have to run the risk.”

And having wotted the which, Mr. Skinner cabled Christian Swenson to
take charge of the Retriever, at master's wages, until the arrival of
his successor. Next he cabled The Harlow and Benton Company, Limited,
requesting them to pay off Matt Peasley and, if necessary, invoke the
authorities to remove him from the vessel.

“That fellow is a tough one to handle,” he remarked to Cappy Ricks, to
whom he showed all the cablegrams, “but I guess this will about cut off
his wind.”

“A sea lawyer is the curse of the Seven Seas!” Cappy declared waspishly.
He was very bitter against Matt Peasley, whom he now regarded as an ally
of the piratical cable company.



CHAPTER VII. CAPPY RICKS MAKES BAD MEDICINE


That afternoon Mr. Skinner herded Captain McBride of the Nokomis and
his Norwegian mate into Cappy Ricks' office. Cappy brought them to terms
very promptly, and the captain started for New York on the Overland the
same night. From New York he was to take passage to Liverpool, thence
via the A. D. line to Cape Town. Cappy almost had a bloody sweat when
he reflected on the expense for provisions and wages for the crew
during the weeks of idleness while McBride was on the way to join the
Retriever. Both he and Mr. Skinner had decided that nothing could be
gained by informing McBride, who was a little, mild-mannered gentleman
with gold eyeglasses, of the potential ducking that awaited him at the
hands of Matt Peasley; for just before McBride said good-bye and started
for the train Cappy and Mr. Skinner discovered that their apple cart
again had been upset. The following cablegram received from Matt Peasley
knocked into a cocked hat all their high hopes of ridding themselves of
the incubus.

                              Cape Town, Feb. 17, 19--.

  Bluestar,
    San Francisco.

  Swenson fired before leaving San Francisco.  Second mate Murphy
  declines take your orders, claiming me superior officer; I
  decline also, claiming captain en route my superior officer.
  Owner can fire captain but only captain can fire or disrate
  ship's officers.  Besides I shipped for the round trip.

                                                Peasley.

“Well,” said Cappy, “what do you know about that? He clings to us like
a barnacle or a poor relation--and the worst of it is the damned sea
lawyer is absolutely right. We have no authority to fire him, Skinner.
Just think of a government that will permit such a ridiculous state of
affairs as that to exist! Think of it, Skinner! We hire the man Peasley
but we can't fire him--and in the meantime he'll roost in Cap'n Noah's
cabin and run up bills on us and consume our groceries and draw master's
pay until McBride arrives and discharges him.”

For geographical and financial reasons Cappy Ricks was barred from
quarreling with Matt Peasley. However, he was as cross as a setting hen
and just naturally had to vent his displeasure on somebody, and as
he paid Mr. Skinner a very large salary to be his general manager, he
figured he could afford to quarrel with Skinner. So he said:

“Well, Skinner, if you hadn't butted in on the shipping end of the
business the man Peasley would not have been given this opening to
swat us. It's nuts for a sailor any time he can trip up a landsman, and
particularly his owners--”

“You O.K.'d the cablegrams, Mr. Ricks,” Skinner reminded him coldly.

“Don't talk back to me!” Cappy piped. “Not another peep out of you,
sir! Not another word of discussion about this matter under any
circumstances! I don't want to talk about it further--understand? It's
driving me insane. Now, then, Skinner, tell me: If the man Peasley
should decline to recognize McBride's authority, what course would you
advise pursuing?”

“I do not think he will be that arbitrary, Mr. Ricks. In the first
place--”

“Skinner, please do not argue with me. The man Peasley would do
anything--”

“Well, in that event, McBride can call in the civil authorities of Cape
Town, to remove Peasley by force from the ship.”

“Skinner, you'll drive me to drink! I ask you, has a British official
any authority over an American vessel lying in the roadstead? Will a
foreign official dare to set foot on an American deck when an American
skipper orders him not to do so?”

“I am not a sea lawyer,” Mr. Skinner retorted, “I do not know.”

“The Retriever will have discharged her cargo weeks before McBride
arrives. Then suppose Peasley takes a notion to warp his vessel outside
the three-mile limit. What authority has McBride got then?”

“I repeat, I am not a sea lawyer, Mr. Ricks.”

“Don't equivocate with me, Skinner! Let's argue this question calmly,
coolly and deliberately. Don't lose your temper. Now then. Peasley said
he'd throw his successor overboard, didn't he?”

“Oh, merely a threat, Mr. Ricks.”

“Skinner, you're a fine, wise manager! A threat, eh?” Cappy laughed--a
short, scornful laugh. “Huh! Threat! Joke!”

“You do not think it is a threat?”

“No, sir. It's a promise. McBride is a splendid little man and game to
the core; but no good, game little man will ever stay on a deck if a
good, game big man takes a notion to throw him overboard, and the man
Peasley is both big and game, otherwise he would not defy us. Why,
Skinner, that fellow wouldn't pause at anything. Hasn't he spent over
a hundred dollars arguing with us by cable? Why, he's a desperate
character! Also, he would not threaten to throw his successor overboard
if he didn't know that he was fully capable of so doing. Paste that
in your hat, Skinner. It isn't done.” Skinner inclined his head
respectfully. Cappy continued: “What I should have done was to have sent
a good, game, big man--”

He paused, and his glance met Skinner's wonderingly as a bright idea
leaped into his cunning brain and crystallized into definite purpose. He
sprang up, waved his skinny old arms, and kicked the waste-basket into a
corner of the room.

“I have it, Skinner! I've solved the problem. Go back and 'tend to your
lumber business and leave the man Peasley to me. I'll tan that fellow's
hide and hang it on my fence, just as sure as George Washington crossed
the Delaware River.”

Mr. Skinner, glad to be excused, promptly made his escape. When Cappy
Ricks stripped for action, Mr. Skinner knew from long experience that
there was going to be a fight or a foot race; that whenever the old
gentleman set out to confound an enemy, the inevitable result was
wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth, in which doleful form of
exercise Cappy Ricks had never been known to participate.

“Send in a boy!” Cappy ordered as the general manager withdrew.

The boy appeared. “Sonny,” said Cappy Ricks, “do you know All Hands And
Feet?” The boy nodded and Cappy continued: “Well, you go down on the
Embarcadero, like a good boy, and cruise from Folsom Street to Broadway
Wharf Number Two until you find All Hands and Feet. Look in front of
cigar stands and in the shipchandlery stores; and if you don't find
him in those places run over to the assembly rooms of Harbor Fifteen,
Masters' and Pilots' Association, and see if he's there, playing
checkers. When you find him tell him Mr. Ricks wants to see him at
once.”



CHAPTER VIII. ALL HANDS AND FEET TO THE RESCUE


Captain Ole Peterson was known to the coastwise trade as All Hands And
Feet. He was a giant Swede whose feet resembled twin scow models and
whose clenched fists, properly smoked and cured, might have passed
anywhere for picnic hams. He was intelligent, competent and belligerent,
with a broad face, slightly dished and plentifully scarred, while his
wide flat nose had been stove in and shifted hard a-starboard. Cappy
Ricks liked him, respected his ability and found him amusing as one
finds an educated bear amusing. He had a reputation for being the
undefeated rough and tumble champion of Sweden and the United States.

“You ban vant to see me, sir?” he rumbled as, hat in hand, he stood
beside Cappy Ricks' desk half an hour later. Compared with the huge
Swede, Cappy looked like a watch charm.

“Sit down, captain,” Cappy replied amiably. “I hear you're out of a job.
Why?”

Briefly All Hands And Feet explained what Cappy already knew; that his
last command, being old and rotten and over-loaded, had worked apart
in a seaway and fallen to pieces under him. The inspectors had held him
blameless.

“I have a job for you, Ole,” Cappy announced. “But there's a string
attached to it.”

“Aye ban able to pull strings, sir,” Ole reminded him.

Cappy smiled, and outlined to the Swede the conditions surrounding the
barkentine Retriever. “I'm going to give you command of the Retriever,”
 he continued confidentially. “You are to bring her home from Cape Town,
and when you get back I'll have a staunch four-masted schooner waiting
for you. I was going to send McBride of the Nokomis on this job, but
thought better of it, for the reason that Mac may not be physically
equipped to perform the additional task I have in mind and I believe
you are. Peterson, if you want a steady job skippering for the Blue Star
Navigation Company you've got to earn it, and to earn it you've got
to give this fellow Peasley a good sound thrashing for the good of his
immortal soul. The very moment you step aboard the Retriever let him
know you're the master.”

“Do you tank he ban villin' to fight?” Ole demanded.

“Something tells me he will. However, in case he doesn't, don't let that
embarrass you. Man-handle him until he does. Let me impress upon you,
captain, the fact that I want the man Peasley summarily chastised for
impudence and insubordination.”

“All right, sir,” said Ole. “Aye ban work him over.” To be asked to
fight for a job was to this descendant of the Vikings the ne plus ultra
of sportsmanship. “Aye never ban licked yet,” he added reminiscently.

“When we cabled we were sending a man to relieve him,” Cappy complained,
“he replied, telling us to insure his successor's life, because he was
going to throw him overboard the minute he arrived.”

All Hands And Feet swept away any lingering fears Cappy might chance
to be entertaining. “Aye ban weigh two hundret an' saxty pounds,” he
announced.

“Which being the case,” Cappy warned him, “should he succeed in throwing
YOU overboard I should consider you unfit for a job in my employ.” (The
old fox had not the slightest idea such a contretemps was possible, but
in order to play safe he considered it good policy to hearten Ole for
the fray.) “Should he defeat you, captain, I have no hesitancy in saying
to you now that such a misfortune would have a most disastrous effect on
your future in my employ. You know me. When I order a job done, I want
it done, and I want it done well. Understand! I don't want you to
maim or kill the man, but just give him a good sound--er--commercial
thrashing; and after you've tamed him I want you to--”

All Hands And Feet nodded his comprehension.

“An',” he interrupted, “after aye ban slap him once or twice aye
ban give good kick under de coattail an' fire dis fresh guy--eh?” he
suggested.

“Fire nothing!” shrilled Cappy. “You follow instructions, Ole, or I'll
fire you! No, sir. After you've thrashed him I want you to bend a rope
round him amidships and souse him overside to bring him to! Remember, we
fired him once and he would not be fired. The damned sea lawyer quoted
the salt-water code to us and said he'd shipped for the round trip; so
we'll take him at his word. He's your first mate, captain. Bring him
back to Grays Harbor with you; and then, if you feel so inclined, you
may apply the tip of your number twenty-four sea boot where it will do
the most good; in fact, I should prefer it. But by all means see to it
that he completes his contract with the barkentine Retriever.”

“Aye skoll see to it,” Ole promised fervently.

“I thank you, captain. Come out in the general office now and I'll
introduce you to the cashier, who will furnish you with expense money.
Meantime, I'll have Skinner fill out a certificate of change of masters
and have it registered at the custom-house. Can't send you down there
without your credentials, you know.”

All Hands And Feet mumbled his thanks; for, indeed, he was grateful
for this chance to prove his metal. Calm in the knowledge of his
past performances, he took no thought of the personal issue with Matt
Peasley, for never had he met a mate he could not thrash. He followed
Cappy out to the cashier's desk; and while the latter equipped All Hands
And Feet for his journey to South Africa, and Mr. Skinner departed
for the custom-house to have the certificate registered, Cappy wired
McBride, aboard the Overland speeding east, instructing him to come back
to San Francisco.

When Skinner returned to the office he found Cappy clawing nervously at
his whiskers.

“The man Peasley has completely disrupted our organization,” he
complained bitterly. “Here I go to work and promote McBride to the
Retriever to make room for his mate in the Nokomis, and now I have to
recall Mac and give the Retriever to All Hands And Feet until she gets
back to Grays Harbor; in consequence of which Mac hasn't a thing to do
for four months and draws full pay for doing it, and later I've got
to provide a permanent place for All Hands And Feet! Skinner, if this
continues, I shall yet fill a pauper's grave.” He was silent for several
seconds; then: “By the way, Skinner, have you replied to that last
cablegram from the man Peasley?”

“No, sir. I didn't think it required an answer.”

“You mean you didn't know what answer to give him,” Cappy snarled.
“Well, neither do I; but since the cuss has got us into the spending
habit, I'm going to be reckless for once and send him a cable myself,
just to let him know I'm calling his bluff.”

And, with that remark, Cappy squared round to his desk and wrote, in a
trembling hand: “Special messenger big as horse carries reply your last
cablegram.”

“There,” he said, turning to his general manager; “send that to the man
Peasley, and sign my name to it.”



CHAPTER IX. MR. MURPHY ADVISES PREPAREDNESS


Matt Peasley said nothing to Mr. Murphy when Cappy Ricks' cryptic
cablegram was received. Insofar as Matt was concerned, that cablegram
closed the argument, for even had it seemed to demand a reply the
master of the Retriever would not--nay could not, have answered, for the
controversy had already ruined him financially. So he went on briskly
with his task of discharging the Retriever and when the A. D. liner
pulled out for Liverpool with Captain Noah's body on board, he laid off
work merely long enough to dip the ensign and run it to half mast again
until the steamer was out of sight; then he furled the flag, stored it
in the locker in Captain Noah's stateroom, into which he had now moved,
and went on superintending the discharging. When the vessel was empty he
had a tug tow him out into the roadstead, where he cast anchor and set
himself patiently to await the arrival of the special messenger “as big
as a horse.”

Somehow Matt didn't relish that little dash of descriptive writing. In
conjunction with the noun horse Cappy Ricks had employed the indefinite
article a, and while a horse was a horse and Cappy might have had a
Shetland pony in mind when he coined the simile, nevertheless, a still
small voice whispered to Matt Peasley that at the time Cappy was really
thinking of a Percheron. The longer Matt chewed the cud of anticipation
the more acute grew his regret that he had threatened to throw his
successor overboard. He traced a certain analogy between that threat and
Cappy Ricks' simple declarative sentence, and finally he decided to take
Mr. Murphy into his confidence.

“Mike,” he said, “did you ever hear any gossip to the effect that Cappy
Ricks will swallow a bluff?”

“No, I never have,” Mr. Murphy replied. “Why do you ask? You been trying
to bluff him, Matt?”

“No, I really meant it when I said it, and if I'm crowded I'll make
good, but somehow I wish I hadn't said it. It wasn't dignified.”

“What did you say, Matt?”

“I cabled the owners that if they sent a skipper down here to relieve
me they had better insure his life, because I'd throw him overboard upon
arrival.”

“Why, that's war talk,” Mr. Murphy declared, highly scandalized.
“I don't think Cappy Ricks will stand for that. I know blame well I
wouldn't.”

“What would you do, Mike, if you stood in Cappy's shoes and I sent you
that cablegram?”

“Well,” Mr. Murphy mused, “of course I'd be a little old man weighing
about a hundred and thirty pounds ring-side, and I wouldn't be able to
thrash you myself, but if it took my last dollar I'd send somebody down
here to do the job for me.

“Well, I guess that's just about what Cappy has done,” Matt admitted,
and handed his mate Cappy's cablegram.

“Hah-hah!” Mr. Murphy commented. “That threat got past the general
manager, right up to headquarters. Why, the old man signed this
cablegram and they do say that when Cappy takes personal charge the
fur begins to fly. Matt, if I was a drinking man I'd offer to bet you a
scuttle of grog it's a case of die dog, or eat the meat-axe. Your bluff
has been called, my son.”

“Then,” Matt averred impudently, “the only thing for me to do is to call
Cappy's.”

“How?”

“Why, give his messenger a good trouncing, of course. You don't suppose
I'm going to stand by and take a thrashing or let the other fellow heave
me overboard, do you? I should say not!”

Mr. Murphy puffed at his pipe, in silence for several minutes, the while
he pondered the situation. Presently he arrived at a solution.

“He wouldn't send a prize-fighter down here, just to lick you,” he
announced. “The old man is the wildest spendthrift on earth when you
get him started, but as a general rule his middle name is Tight Wad. He
would select a combination of scrapper and skipper, and there are any
number of such combinations on the beach of 'Frisco town. I could name
you a dozen off-hand, and any one of the dozen would make you mind your
P's and Q's, big as you are. Still, they all fight alike--rough and
tumble, catch-as-catch-can. They come wading in, swinging both arms
and you could sail the Retriever through the openings they leave. Know
anything about boxing, Matt?”

“Not a thing, Mike. I've always had to climb the big fellows.”

“Then I'll teach you,” Mr. Murphy announced with conviction. “You're
in fine shape now--as right as a fox and fit to tackle the finest, but
there isn't any sense in getting mauled up when you don't have to. I'll
go ashore and buy a set of six-ounce gloves, a set of two-ounce gloves
and a punching bag. For the next three weeks you won't have anything
to do except prepare for the battle, and I can teach you a lot of good
stuff in three weeks. To be fore-warned is to be fore-armed, Matt, and
if Cappy has sent a Holy Terror to clean you, give him a regular fight,
even if he licks you.”

Matt Peasley nodded. He entertained a profound respect for Mr. Murphy's
judgment.



CHAPTER X. THE BATTLE OF TABLE BAY


In due course Captain Ole Peterson arrived at Cape Town. As the steamer
which bore him slipped up Table Bay to her pier All Hands And Feet saw
a big barkentine, flying the American flag, at anchor just inside the
breakwater and rightly conjectured she was his future command. Three
hours ashore proved ample time to consummate all of the Retriever's
neglected business. He discovered that the man to whom he was to
administer a good, sound, commercial thrashing, as per Cappy Ricks'
instructions, had already purchased and gotten aboard stores and water
for the voyage back to Grays Harbor, so All Hands And Feet drew some
money from the consignees, to be deducted from the freight money, paid
off all the vessel's bills, O.K.'d the consignees' statement of account
to be forwarded to the owners, received a ninety-day draft on London,
in payment of the freight, mailed it to his owners, cleared his vessel,
procured a reliable man to witness the formal transfer of authority from
Matt Peasley to himself, engaged a launch and set out for the Retriever.
All Hands And Feet had had ample time to plan his campaign, and he
had planned it well. Immediately upon setting foot on the deck of the
Retriever he planned to attack; then, this duty accomplished, he would
send his witness ashore, up hook and away. The attack having taken place
in British waters All Hands And Feet hoped Matt Peasley would have no
redress in American waters; and if he took the complainant to sea with
him the man Peasley would, of a certainty, have no legal redress in
British waters!

Mr. Murphy was the first to sight All Hands And Feet. The worthy fellow
had observed the arrival of the steamer and it had occurred to him that
possibly Cappy Ricks' messenger might be aboard her. He had been on
the lookout for two hours, accordingly, and the instant he saw a launch
coming toward the Retriever his suspicions were fully aroused. He ran
below and returned with the two ounce gloves and Captain Kendall's
powerful marine glasses, which latter he leveled at the approaching
launch, and while the new skipper was still a couple of cable lengths
distant, Mr. Murphy recognized him. Instantly he secured the two ounce
gloves and ran aft to where Matt Peasley, dressed in slippers, duck
trousers and undershirt, sat under an awning reading Sinful Peck.

“Matt,” he declared, “the special messenger will be aboard in about
three shakes of a lamb's tail. I recognize him.”

“Who is he?” Matt demanded coolly.

“All Hands And Feet--and believe me, he's there! He isn't a man, Matt,
he's a bear--he's a devil, and if he ever gets his hands on you it's
Kitty bar the door! Get into the gloves, boy, get into the gloves. You
could smash that big Swede to your heart's content, but you wouldn't
even stagger him with the first few punches. You'd just break your hands
on him before you could knock him out and then he'd walk over you. Into
the gloves, Matt, and save your knuckles.”

“All right, Mike. Don't be in such a hurry. Call a couple of hands and
let down the companion ladder so the special messenger can bring his
dunnage aboard. I'll fight him after I've finished this chapter--that
is, if he insists on being accommodated.”

“He'll insist,” Mr. Murphy declared. “He likes it, and the reason he
likes it is because he does it well, and that's the reason he's here. He
won't waste any ceremony on you, Matt. He's always up and doing.”

Matt finished his chapter of Sinful Peck just as All Hands And Feet,
followed by a Cape Town gentleman and two Kru boys, bearing respectively
a brown canvas telescope basket and a sea chest, bore down upon him,
convoyed by Mr. Murphy.

“A big Swede skipper,” Matt Peasley soliloquized, as he eyed the
stranger with alert interest. “Thunder, but he's big. He's the biggest
thing I ever saw walking on two legs, with the exception of a trick
elephant.” He rose, put down his book and advanced to greet his
visitors. While All Hands And Feet was still fully thirty feet from him
he bawled aloud:

“You ban Mr. Peasley?”

“Captain Peasley,” young Matt corrected him. “Since the death of Captain
Kendall I have been in charge of the vessel; hence, for the present, I
am known as Captain Peasley. What can I do for you, gentlemen?”

All Hands And Feet glanced appraisingly at Matt Peasley and did him the
honor to remove his coat and vest.

“Yes; it's pretty hot down in these latitudes,” Matt remarked, by way of
being pleasant and making conversation.

All Hands And Feet removed an envelope from his coat pocket and handed
it to Matt; and while the latter perused it the big Swede strode to the
scuttle butt and helped himself to a drink of water. Matt opened the
envelope and read this communication from Cappy Ricks:

                                    San Francisco, California.
                                      February 20, 19--.

  Mr. Matthew Peasley,
    Chief Mate Barkentine Retriever,
      Cape Town, South Africa.

  My Dear Mr. Peasley:

  Cast your eye along the lines of the bearer of this note, Captain
  Ole Peterson, who comes to Cape Town to take command of the
  Retriever.  Within five minutes he will, acting under
  instructions from me and without the slightest personal animus
  toward yourself, proceed to administer to you the beating of a
  lifetime.  By the time he gets through wiping the deck with you
  perhaps you will realize the necessity, in the future, of obeying
  orders from your owners.

  In your cablegram received to-day, you take occasion to remind us
  that no manager or owner has authority to disrate a ship's
  officer.  This is quite true.  Such authority is vested only in
  the master of the ship.  You need have no fear for your job,
  however.  We believe you to be a clever first mate, otherwise
  Captain Kendall would not have dug you up out of the forecastle;
  and believing this, naturally we dislike the thought of disrating
  you.  We have, therefore, instructed Captain Peterson to retain
  you in your berth as first mate.

  However, in view of the fact that we have informed him of your
  amiable intentions of throwing him overboard, he will first
  inculcate in you that spirit of respect to your superiors which
  you so manifestly lack.  He will then dip you into the drink, to
  bring you to, and after that you will kindly go forward and break
  out the anchor.  You signed for the round trip and you're going
  to complete your contract.  Remember that.

                                    Cordially and sincerely yours,
                                      Blue Star Navigation Company,
                                        By Alden P. Ricks,
                                          President.

Matt Peasley read this extraordinary communication twice, then folded it
and calmly placed it in his pocket.

“May I inquire, sir,” he said, facing the gentleman who had accompanied
All Hands And Feet aboard the Retriever, “who you are and the nature of
your business?”

“I am the American consul, Mr. Peasley, and I am here at the invitation
of Captain Peterson, the master of this ship, to witness the formal
transfer of authority from you to him. I was given to understand by
Captain Peterson that you might offer some slight objection to this
arrangement.”

“Slight objection!” Matt Peasley replied with a rising inflection, and
grinned maliciously.

The consul had his Yankee sense of humor with him and chuckled as Matt
lifted his big body on his toes and stretched both arms lazily. Then
Matthew Peasley turned toward All Hands And Feet.

“I have a letter from the owners of the Retriever,” he said
respectfully, “which leads me to presume that you are to supersede me
in command of the vessel.” All Hands And Feet nodded. “Which being the
case,” Matt Peasley continued, “as a mere matter of formality, you will
of course present your credentials as master.”

“Sure!” Ole replied pleasantly, and sidled toward Matt Peasley with
outstretched arms. Could Cappy Ricks have seen his skipper then, he
would have reminded the Old Man more than ever of a bear.

Matt Peasley needed no blueprint of the big Swede's plans. All Hands
And Feet, depending on his sheer horse power and superior weight, always
fought in mass formation, as it were. His modus operandi was to embrace
his enemy in those terrible arms, squeeze the breath out of him with
one bearlike hug, then lay him on the deck, straddle him, and pummel him
into insensibility at his leisure. Matt gave ground rapidly and held up
a warning hand.

“One moment, my friend,” he requested. “Before you get familiar on brief
acquaintance, don't you think you had better present your credentials?”

All Hands And Feet shook his two great fists and grinned good-naturedly.

“How dese ban suit you for credentials?” he queried.

“Fine,” Matt Peasley answered; “only, before you present them, our first
duty is to the ship. I take it that you have cleared the vessel and that
after trimming me you intend to put to sea.”

“You ban guess it,” the Swede rumbled. “Put up de dooks. Anyhow, I ban't
have to fight little feller. Dat ban one comfort.”

“You cleared the ship, eh? Well, Swede, I'm glad to hear that. I
should have cleared her myself and sailed long ago if I had only had
a skipper's ticket; but these British custom-house officials are great
sticklers for red tape and they wouldn't clear me. And, of course, a man
can't sail without his papers. When he does they send a gunboat
after him. However,” he added brightly “the ship is cleared and the
skipper--so I am unofficially informed--is aboard. By the way, Swede, I
left a lot of O.K.'d bills for stores and provision up at the office of
the Harlow & Benton Company, Limited. Did you square up for them?”

“Yah; everything ban shipshape,” All Hands And Feet assured him.

“And you insist on presenting your credentials in bunches of fives, eh?”

All Hands And Feet nodded and once more commenced sidling toward Matt
Peasley, who backed away again, meantime addressing himself to the
United States consul:

“You heard what he said, Mr. Consul. He may be my superior officer, but
I have not been informed of that fact officially; and meantime, so far
as I am concerned, he is merely a fine, big squarehead who has climbed
aboard my ship uninvited and attacked me. Did you ever see a sea bully
licked, Mr. Consul?”

“I have never had that pleasure, Mr. Peasley.”

All the time Matt Peasley was circling around the deck, with All Hands
And Feet sidling after him.

“Then you've got something coming, sir,” Matt replied. “Help yourself to
a reserved seat on the rail and watch the joyous procedure. Mr. Murphy?”

“Here, sir,” Mr. Murphy replied promptly.

“I'm going to thrash the big fellow, Mr. Murphy. Stand by to see fair
play and keep the crew off him. I observe you have equipped yourself
with a belaying-pin. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. You anticipate the
situation.”

He turned to All Hands And Feet, who was still crowding him as they
circled the deck. “Stop where you are, my friend; otherwise, Mr. Murphy
will crack you on the head with the belaying-pin.”

All Hands And Feet grinned patronizingly and paused.

“Vell?” he queried.

“On my ship,” Matt continued, “all fights are pulled off under my rules.
Kicking, choking, biting, gouging and deadly weapons are prohibited.
If you get me down you can use your fists on me, but anything else
will necessitate the interference of the referee with his trusty
belaying-pin.”

“Vell?” All Hands And Feet queried again. He was very eager for the
fray.

“We have procured a set of two-ounce gloves in anticipation of this
physical culture exhibition,” Matt replied. “Unfortunately, however, I
fear your hands will not fit them. Would you care to try them on?”

“Cut it oud! Cut it oud!” the enemy rumbled contemptuously, and again
commenced his advance.

“One minute, then, my friend, until I put on--”

“Fight mit your bare hands like a man!” the big Swede bellowed
scathingly.

“You forget. I told you all fights on my ship are pulled off under my
rules. I always fight with two-ounce gloves.”

“All righd. Suit yourself.” All Hands And Feet felt he could afford to
give the enemy a trifle the better of the argument without the slightest
prejudice to his own chances for success.

Accordingly, Mr. Murphy skillfully bandaged Matt Peasley's hands, drew
on the gloves and gently shoved his young champion toward the center of
the deck. “Let 'er go!” he announced.

“Come Swede! Present your credentials!” Matt taunted. His long left
flashed out and cuffed All Hands And Feet on the nose.

It was a mere love-tap! All Hands And Feet grinned pityingly, and with
his left arm guarding his face, rushed.

“Lower deck!” Mr. Murphy warned, and laughed as Matt planted left and
right in the midriff and danced away from the Swede's swinging right.
All Hands And Feet grunted--a most unwarriorlike grunt--and dropped both
hands--whereupon a fog suddenly descended upon his vision. Faintly he
made out a blur that was Matt Peasley; bellowing wrathfully he rushed.
Matt gave ground and the Swede's vision cleared and he paused to
consider the situation.

“No rest for the wicked,” Mr. Murphy declared. “At him, boy, at him!”

All Hands And Feet realized he faced a desperate situation, and as Matt
stepped in he ducked and leaped upon his antagonist.

“By yiminy,” he yelled. “I got you now!” and his great hands closed
around Matt Peasley's neck.

“Lower deck!” Mr. Murphy yelled shrilly, and a volley of short arm
blows commenced to rattle on the big Swede's stomach. For at least seven
seconds Matt worked like a pneumatic riveter; then--

“Swing your partner for the grand right and left,” Mr. Murphy counseled,
and Matt closed with All Hands And Feet, and managed to shake the badly
winded champion off.

“All off,” Mr. Murphy declared to the American consul and dropped his
marline-spike, as Matt Peasley ripped left and right, right and left
into Ole Peterson's dish face. “Watch the skipper--our skipper, I mean.
Regular young human pile-driver.” He raised his voice and called to Matt
Peasley. “He's rocking on his legs now, sir; but keep away from those
arms. He's dangerous and you're givin' him fifty pounds the best of it
in the weights. Try the short ribs with your left and feel for his chin
with the right, sir. Very nicely done, sir! Now--once more!”

Mr. Murphy nodded politely to the American consul.

“Excuse me,” he said. “The bigger they are the harder they fall, and
the Retriever's deck ain't no nice place to bump a man's head. I'll just
skip round in back and catch him in my arms.”

Which being done, Mr. Murphy laid All Hands And Feet gently on deck,
walked to the scuttle butt, procured a dipperful of water and threw it
into the gory, battered face. Matt Peasley had simply walked round him
and, with the advantage of a superior reach, had systematically cut
Captain Ole Peterson to strings and ribbons.

He held up the blood-soaked gloves for Mr. Murphy to untie the strings,
the while he sniffed a little afternoon breeze that had just sprung up,
blowing straight for the open sea.

“When he comes to, Mr. Murphy,” he ordered calmly, “escort him to your
old room. Have one of the men stow his dunnage there also; and tell him
if he shows his nose on deck until I give him permission, he shall have
another taste of the same. Mr. Consul, I should be highly honored if you
would step into my cabin and hoist one to our own dear native land.”

“With pleasure,” the consul replied. “Though I cannot, in my capacity as
a citizen of the United States, endorse your--er--mutiny, nevertheless,
as a United States consul at Cape Town I shall take pleasure in
certifying to the fact that the fallen gladiator was the aggressor,
that he did not present his credentials, and that you had no official
knowledge of his identity.”

“I wish you would make an affidavit to that effect, under the seal of
the Consulate, and mail it to me at Hoquiam, Washington, U. S. A.,”
 Matt pleaded, as they reached his cabin. He reached into poor old Cap'n
Noah's little private locker. “I've a suspicion, sir, I'm going to need
your affidavit very badly.”

“I shall do so, Mr. Peasley. May I inquire what you purpose doing with
Captain Peterson?”

“Captain Peasley--if you please, Mr. Consul.” Matt looked up and
grinned. “I think,” he continued, as he inserted the corkscrew, “I shall
ship that boy as second mate if he's willing to work. If he's sullen, of
course he'll have to remain in his room--and I shall not permit him to
present his credentials now.”

“Captain Peasley,” the consul warned seriously. “I'm afraid you're in
very, very Dutch.”

“I wouldn't be surprised. However, it will be about three months before
I commence to suffer, and in the meantime I'm going to be supremely
happy skippering the barkentine Retriever back to Grays Harbor, if they
hang me for it when I get there. Say when!”

“When!”

“Here's success to crime, Mr. Consul.”

“Good luck to you, you youthful prodigy; good luck and bon voyage,
Mr.--I mean Captain Peasley.”

“Thank you, Mr. Consul. I hate to hurry you away; fact is, I'd like to
have you stay aboard and have dinner with us, but if this breeze holds
good I can save my owners an outward towage bill, and I'll have to
hustle. So I'll bid you good-bye, Mr. Consul. Glad to have had you for
the little exhibition. Here is my name and address--and please don't
forget that affidavit.”

When the American consul left the ship Matt Peasley was on the poop
bawling orders; up on the topgallant forecastle the capable Mr. Murphy
and his bully boys were walking around the windlass to the bellowing
chorus of Roll A Man Down! while the boatswain, promoted by Matt Peasley
to second mate, was laying aloft forward shaking out the topsails and
hoisting her head-sails. When the consul looked again, the American
barkentine Retriever had turned her tail on Cape Town and was scampering
down Table Bay with a bone in her teeth; heeling gently to the
freshening breeze, she was rolling home in command of the boy who had
joined her five months before as an able seaman.

Matt Peasley rounded the Cape of Good Hope nicely, but he had added
materially to his stock of seamanship before he won through the
tide-rips off Point Aghulas and squared away across the Indian Ocean.
Coming up along the coast of Australia he had the sou'east trades and
he crowded her until Mr. Murphy forgot the traditions of the sea, forgot
that Matt Peasley was the skipper and hence not to be questioned, and
remembered that the madman was only a boy.

“Captain Matt,” he pleaded, “take some clothes off the old girl, for the
love of life! She's making steamer time now, and if the breeze freshens
you'll lift the sticks out of her.”

“Lift nothing, Mike. I know her. Cap'n Noah told me all about her. You
can drive the Retriever until she develops a certain little squeak up
forward--and then it's time to shorten sail. She isn't squeaking yet,
Mike. Don't worry. She'll let us know,” and his beaming glance
wandered aloft to the straining cordage and bellying canvas. “Into it,
sweetheart,” he crooned, “into it, girl, and we'll show this Cappy
Ricks what we know about sailing a ship that can sail! Meager maritime
experience, eh? I'll show him!”

  Oh, Sally Brown, I love your daughter,
  I love your daughter, indeed I do,

he caroled, and buck-and-winged his way back to the poop, for he was
only a boy, life was good, he was fighting a fight and as Mr. Murphy
remarked a minute later when Matt ordered him to bend the fore-staysail
on her; “What the hell!”

Day and night Matt Peasley drove her into it. He stood far off shore
until he ran out of the sou'east trades, fiddled around two days in
light airs and then picked up the nor'east trades; drove her well
into the north, hauled round and came romping up to Grays Harbor bar
seventy-nine days from Cape Town. A bar tug, ranging down the coast,
hooked on to him and snaked him in.



CHAPTER XI. MR. SKINNER RECEIVES A TELEGRAM


Cappy Ricks was having his customary mid-afternoon nap in his big swivel
chair and his feet on his desk, when Mr. Skinner came in and woke him
up.

“I just couldn't help it, sir,” he announced apologetically, as Cappy
opened one eye and glared at him, “I had to wake you up and tell you the
news.”

“Tell it!” Cappy snapped.

“The Retriever arrived at Grays Harbor this morning, Mr. Ricks. She's
broken the record for a fast passage,” and he handed Cappy Ricks a
telegram.

“Bless my withered heart!” Cappy declared, and opened his other eye.
“You don't tell me? Well, well, well! All Hands And Feet is making good
right off the bat, isn't he?” Cappy chuckled. “Skinner, my dear boy,”
 he bragged, “did you ever see me start out to pick a skipper and hand
myself the worst of it?”

“No, sir,” Mr. Skinner maintained dutifully, and turned away to hide a
wicked little smile, which under the circumstances Skinner was entitled
to.

“And you never will, Skinner. Paste that in your hat, boy. That big
Swede, Peterson, can handle a ship as well as he can handle a refractory
mate--and that's going some, Skinner--going some! I'm not surprised at
his fast passage. Not at all, Skinner. Come to think of it, I'm going
to fire that Scotchman in the Fortuna and give All Hands And Feet his
berth. He has earned it.”

He adjusted his spectacles and read:

                                        Hoquiam, Washington,
                                          June 27, 19--.

  Blue Star Navigation Company,
    258 California St.,
      San Francisco.

  Arrived this morning, seventy-nine days from bar to bar, all
  hands well, including your special messenger.  Offered him job
  as second mate, just to show I had no hard feelings, but he
  would not work, so I brought him home under hatches.  Permitted
  him present his formal credentials this morning and turned over
  command of ship to him.  Declined responsibility and left,
  saying you had promised him command four-masted schooner.
  Seemed trifle hurt, although it is seventy-nine days since I
  thrashed him.  Consequently I am still in command and awaiting
  your instructions.

                                        Peasley.

For a long time Cappy Ricks kept looking sternly at Mr. Skinner over
the tops of his spectacles. There was blood on the moon again, and the
silence was terrible. He kept rocking gently backward and forward in his
swivel chair, for all the world as though preparing for a panther-like
spring at Mr. Skinner's throat. Suddenly he exploded.

“I won't have another thing to do with the man Peasley!” he shrilled.
“The fellow is a thorn in my side and I want peace! Understand, Skinner?
I--want--peace! What in blue blazes do I pay you ten thousand a year for
if it isn't to give me peace? Answer me that, Skinner.”

“Well you said you wanted to attend to the shipping--”

“That'll do, Skinner--that'll do! You're an honorary member of the
I-told-you-so Club and I'm thoroughly disgusted with you. Rid me of this
man--immediately. If I ever get another telegram from the scoundrel I
shall hold you personally responsible.”

Forthwith Mr. Skinner acted. He went up to the office of the United
States District Attorney and swore out a Federal warrant for the arrest
of Matthew Peasley on a charge of mutiny and insubordination, assault
and battery on the high seas, and everything else he could think of. The
authorities promptly wired north to send a United States marshal down
to Grays Harbor to arrest the culprit; and the following afternoon,
when Cappy Ricks got back to his office after luncheon and picked up the
paper, the very first thing his glance rested on was the headline:

          MATE CHARGED WITH MUTINY!

Mutiny and sundry other crimes on the high seas are out of the ordinary;
hence the United Press correspondent at Hoquiam had considered the story
of Matt Peasley's arrest worthy of dissemination over the Pacific Coast.

Cappy Ricks read it, the principal item of interest in it being a
purported interview with Matt Peasley, who, in choice newspaperese, had
entered a vigorous denial of the charge. The story concluded with the
statement that Peasley was a native of Thomaston, Maine, where he had
always borne a most excellent reputation for steadiness and sobriety.

Cappy Ricks laid the paper aside.

Thomaston, Maine! So the man Peasley was a Down-Easter! That explained
it.

“Well, I hope my teeth may fall into the ocean!” Cappy murmured.
“Thomaston, Maine! Why, he's one of our own town boys--one of my own
people! Dear, dear, dear! Well now, it's strange I didn't know that
name. I must be getting old to forget it.”

He sat in his swivel chair, rocking gently backward and forward for
several minutes, after a fashion he had when perturbed. Suddenly his
old hand shot out and pressed the push button on his desk, and his
stenographer answered.

“Send Mr. Skinner in!” he commanded.

Presently Mr. Skinner came, and again Cappy eyed him over the tops of
his spectacles; again the terrible silence. Skinner commenced to fidget.

“Skinner,” began Cappy impressively, “how often have I got to tell you
not to interfere with the shipping? Tut, tut! Not a peep out of you,
sir--not a peep! You had the audacity, sir, to swear to a Federal
warrant against the man Peasley. How dare you, sir? Do you know who the
man Peasley is? You don't. Well, sir, I'll tell you. He's a Down-East
boy and I went to school with his people. I'll bet Ethan Peasley was
a relative of this boy Matt, because Ethan had a cousin by the name of
Matthew; and Ethan and Matt and I used to hell around together until
they went to sea.

“Lord bless you, Skinner, I can remember yet the day the Martha Peasley
came up the harbor, with her flag at half-mast--and poor old Ethan was
gone--whipped off the end of her main yard when she rolled!

“We were great chums, Ethan and I, Skinner; and I cried. Why--why, damn
it, sir, this boy Matt's people and mine are all buried in the same
cemetery back home. Yes, sir! And nearly all of 'em have the same
epitaph--'Lost at Sea'--and--you idiot, Skinner! What do you mean, sir,
by standing there with your infernal little smile on your smug face? Out
of my office, you jackanapes, and call the dogs off this boy Matt. Why,
there was never one of his breed that wasn't a man and a seaman, every
inch of him.

“All Hands And Feet thrash a Peasley! Huh! A joke! Why, Ethan was six
foot six at twenty, with an arm like a fathom of towing cable. Catch me
turning down one of our own boys! No, sir! Not by a damned sight!”

In all his life Mr. Skinner had never seen Cappy Ricks so wrought up.
He fled at once to call off the dogs, while Cappy turned to his desk and
wrote this telegram:

                                   San Francisco, California.
                                     June 28, 19--.

  Matt Peasley,
    Care United States Marshal,
      Hoquiam, Washington.

  Congratulations on splendid voyage.  You busted record.
  Lindquist, in the John A. Logan, did it in eighty-four days in
  the spring of ninety-four.  Draw draft and pay off crew, render
  report of voyage, place second mate in charge, and proceed
  immediately to Seattle to get your master's ticket.  Will
  telegraph Seattle inspectors requesting waive further probation
  as first mate and issue license if you pass examination in
  order that you may accept captaincy of Retriever.  Skinner, my
  manager, had you arrested.  Would never have done it myself.  I
  come from Thomaston, Maine, and I knew your people.  Would
  never have sent the Swede had I known which tribe of Peasley
  you belonged to--though, if he had licked you, no more than you
  deserved.  I want no more of your impudence, Matt.

                                   Alden P. Ricks.

        *        *        *        *        *        *

For a week business droned along in Cappy Ricks' office as usual,
interrupted at last by the receipt of a telegram from Matt Peasley to
Cappy. It was sent from Seattle and read:

  “Have now legal right to be called captain.  Rejoin ship
  tomorrow.  Wire orders.  Thank you.”

“God bless the lad!” Cappy murmured happily. “I'll bet he's going to
make me a skookum skipper. Still, I think he's pretty young and sadly in
need of training; so I'll have to take some of the conceit out of him.
I'm going to proceed to break his young heart; and if he yells murder
I'll fire him! On the contrary, if he's one of Ethan's tribe--well, the
Peasleys always did their duty; I'll say that for them. I hope he stands
the acid.”

Whereupon Cappy Ricks squared round to his desk and wrote:

                                   San Francisco, July 5, 19--.

  Captain Matthew Peasley,
    Master Barkentine Retriever,
      Hoquiam, Washington.

  Glad you have legal right to be called captain.  Sorry I have
  not.  Proceed to Weatherby's mill, at Cosmopolis, and load for
  Antofagasta, Chile.  Remember speed synonymous with dividends
  in shipping business.

                                   Blue Star Navigation Company.

When Cappy signed his telegrams with the company name it was always a
sure indication he had discharged his cargo of sentiment and gotten down
to business once more.

“A little creosoted piling now and then is bully for the best of men,”
 he cackled. “For a month of Sundays that man Peasley will curse me as
far as he can smell the Retriever. Oh, well! Every dog must have his
day--and I'm a wise old dog. I'll teach that Matt boy some respect for
his owners before I'm through with him!”



CHAPTER XII. THE CAMPAIGN OPENS


When Matt Peasley's Yankee combativeness, coupled with the accident of
birth in the old home town of Cappy Ricks, gained for him command of
the Blue Star Navigation Company's big barkentine, Retriever, he lacked
eight days of his twenty-first birthday. He had slightly less beard than
the average youth of his years; and, despite the fact that he had been
exposed almost constantly to salty gales since his fourteenth birthday,
he did not look his age. And of all the ridiculous sights ashore or
afloat the most ridiculous is a sea captain with the body of a Hercules
and the immature features of an eighteen-year-old boy.

Indeed, such a great, soft, innocent baby type was Matt Peasley that
even the limited sense of humor possessed by his motley crew forbade
their reference to him, after custom immemorial, as the Old Man. The
formal title of captain seemed equally absurd; so they compromised by
dubbing him Mother's Darling.

“If,” quoth Mr. Michael Murphy, chief kicker of the Retriever, over a
quiet pipe with Mr. Angus MacLean, the second mate, as the vessel lay at
anchor in Grays Harbor, “Cappy Ricks had laid eyes on Mother's Darling
before ordering him to Seattle to go up for his master's ticket, the old
fox would have scuttled the ship sooner than trust that baby with her.”

“Ye'll nae be denying the lad kens his business,” Mr. MacLean declared.

“Aye! True enough, Mac; but 'twould be hard to convince Cappy Ricks o'
that. Every skipper in his employ is a graybeard.”

“Mayhap,” the canny MacLean retorted. “That's because t'owd boy's
skippers have held their berths ower long.”

But Mr. Murphy shook his head. He had come up from before the mast
in the ships of the Blue Star Navigation Company, and since he had
ambitions he had been at some pains to acquaint himself with the
peculiarities of the president of that corporation.

“Give Cappy Ricks one look into Matt Peasley's face and I'll be
skippering the Retriever,” he declared.

And in this he was more than half right, for Cappy Ricks had never met
Matt Peasley, and when the Old Man made up his mind that he wanted the
boy to skipper his barkentine, the Retriever, he was acting entirely on
instinct. He only knew that in Matt Peasley he had a man who had shipped
out before the mast and returned from the voyage in command of the ship,
and naturally such an exploit challenged recognition of the most signal
nature--particularly when, in its performance, the object of Cappy's
admiration had demonstrated that he was possessed of certain sterling
attributes which are commonly supposed to make for success in any walk
of life.

Since Matt Peasley had accomplished a man's work it never occurred to
Cappy Ricks to consider that the object of his interest might be a boy.
Young he knew him to be--that is to say, Cappy figured the rascal to be
somewhere between thirty and thirty-five.

Had he known, however, that his prospective captain had but recently
attained his majority the Old Man would have ascribed Matt Peasley's
record-breaking voyage from Cape Town to Grays Harbor as sheer luck,
and forthwith would have set Master Matthew down for a five-year
apprenticeship as first mate; for Cappy was the product of an older day,
and held that gray hairs and experience are the prime requisites for a
berth as master.

Any young upstart can run coastwise, put in his service sailing a
ship from headland to headland, and then take a course in a navigation
school, where in six weeks he can cram sufficient navigation into his
thick head to pass the inspectors and get a master's ticket; but for
offshore cruising Cappy Ricks demanded a real sailor and a thorough
business man rolled into one.

Mother's Darling had returned to Grays Harbor from a flying visit to
Seattle, where two grizzled old ex-salts, the local inspectors, had put
him through a severe examination to ascertain what he knew of Bowditch
on Navigation and Nichols on Seamanship. Naturally he did not know as
much as they thought he should; but, out of sheer salt-water pride in
the exploit of a stripling and in deference to a letter from Cappy Ricks
requesting them to waive further probation as chief mate and issue Mr.
Peasley his master's license if they found him at all competent--this
in order that the said Peasley might take command of his barkentine, the
Retriever, forthwith--the inspectors concluded to override the rules of
the Department of Commerce, and gave Matt Peasley his master's license.

Upon his return from Seattle, Matt called at the telegraph office in
Hoquiam and received his loading instructions from the owners. His heart
beat high with youthful importance and the joy of victory as he almost
ran to the water front and engaged a big gasoline launch to take him
aboard the Retriever and then kick her into the mill dock at Cosmopolis.
His ship was not where he had left her, however, and after an hour's
search he discovered her several miles up the Chehalis river. Murphy
was on deck, gazing wistfully at the house and wishing he had some white
paint, when Matt Peasley came aboard. Even before the latter leaped to
the deck Mr. Murphy knew the glad tidings--knew them, in fact, the
very instant the boy's shining countenance appeared above the rail. The
skipper was grinning fatuously and Mr. Murphy grinned back at him.

“Well, sir,” he greeted young Matt, “I see you're the permanent skipper.
I congratulate you.”

“Thank you, Mike. And I hope you will have no objection to continuing in
your berth as first mate. I realize I'm pretty young for an old sailor
like you to be taking orders from--”

“Bless your soul, sir,” Mr. Murphy protested; “of course I'll stick with
you! Didn't you whale the big Swede Cappy Ricks sent to Cape Town
to kick you out of your just due?” He reaffirmed his loyalty with a
contemptuous grunt.

“What are you doing way up the river?” the captain demanded.

“Oh, that's a little liberty I took,” the mate declared. “You're new to
this coast; and, of course, when they ordered us to Grays Harbor I knew
we weren't going to be able to go on dry dock, because there isn't any
dry dock here. So, while you were in Seattle, I had a gasoline tug tow
us up-river. We've been lying in fresh water four days, sir, and that'll
kill most of the worms on her bottom.”

“Hereafter,” said Matt Peasley, “you get ten dollars a month above the
scale. Thank you.”

Mr. Murphy acknowledged his appreciation.

“Any orders, sir?” he continued.

Matt Peasley showed him Cappy Ricks' telegram and Mr. Murphy nodded
his approval. He had been in port nearly a week and the whine of the
sawmills and the reek of river water had begun to get on his nerves. He
was ready for the dark blue again.

“There's something wrong about our cargo, I think,” Matt remarked
presently.

“Why, sir?”

“Why, down at the telegraph office this morning I met the master of the
schooner, Carrier Dove, and when I told him my orders he snickered.”

“Huh! Well, he ought to know what he snickered about, sir. The Carrier
Dove just finished loading at Weatherby's mill,” Mr. Murphy replied.
“She's a Blue Star craft and bound for Antofagasta also. Her skipper's
Salvation Pete Hansen, and it would be just like that squarehead to
dodge a deckload of piling and leave it for us.”

“Well, whatever it was it amused him greatly. It must be worse than a
deckload of piling.”

“There's nothing worse in the timber line, unless it's a load underdeck,
sir. You take a sixty-foot pile with a fourteen-inch butt and try to
shove it down through the hatch, and you've got a job on your hands.
And after the hold is half filled you've got to quit loading through the
hatch, cut ports in your bows, and shove the sticks in that way. It's
the slowest loading and discharging in the world; and unless you drive
her between ports and make up for the lost time you don't make a good
showing with your owners--and then your job's in danger. Ship owners
never consider anything except results.”

“Well,” the captain answered, “in order not to waste any more time than
is absolutely necessary, call Mr. MacLean and the cook, and we'll go
for'd and break out the anchor.”

Immediately on his arrival from Cape Town, Matt Peasley had paid off
all his foremast hands, leaving the two mates and the cook the only men
aboard the vessel. He joined them now in a walk around the capstan;
the launch hooked on and the Retriever was snaked across the harbor to
Weatherby's mill. And, while they were still three cables' length
from the mill dock, Mr. Murphy, who had taken up his position on the
topgallant forecastle, to be ready with a heaving line, suddenly raised
his head and sniffed upwind.

The captain had the wheel and Mr. MacLean was standing aft waiting to
do his duty by the stern line. Presently he, too, raised his head and
sniffed.

“I see you got it too, Mac,” Mr. Murphy bawled.

“Aw, weel,” Mr. MacLean replied; “Why worrit aboot a bridge till ye hae
to cross it? D'ye ken 'tis oors?”

“What are you two fellows talking about and why are you sniffing?” Matt
Peasley demanded.

“I'm sniffing at the same thing Salvation Pete Hansen laughed about,”
 the mate answered. “I'll bet you a uniform cap we're stuck with a cargo
of creosoted piling--and hell hath no fury like a creosoted pile.”

When the vessel had been made fast to the mill dock Matt Peasley walked
forward to meet his mate.

“What about this cargo of ours?” he demanded. “Remember, I'm new to the
lumber trade on this coast. I have never handled any kind of piling.”

“Then, sir, you're going to get your education like the boa constrictor
that swallowed the nigger--all in one long, slimy bite.”

He gazed at his boyish skipper appraisingly.

“No,” he murmured to himself; “I can't do it. I like you for the way you
whaled that big Swede in Cape Town, but this is too much.”

“Why, I don't find the odor so very unpleasant,” the master declared;
“in fact, I rather like it, and I know it's healthy, because I remember,
when my brother Ezra had pneumonia, they burned creosote in the room.”

“Oh, nobody objects to the smell particularly, sir, though it's been my
experience that anybody can cheapen a good thing by overuse--and we have
three months of that smell ahead of us. It's the taste that busts my
bobstay.”

“Why, what do you mean?”

“Well, you see, sir, the odor of creosote is so heavy it won't float in
the air, but just settles down over everything, like mildew on a pair
of boots. So it gets in the stores and you taste it. You can store flour
below deck aft and creosoted piling on deck for'd--and you won't be out
two weeks before that flour is spoiled. Same way with the tea, coffee,
sugar, mush, salt-horse--everything. It all tastes of creosote; and then
the damned stuff rubs off on the ship and ruins the paintwork. And if
the crew happen to have any cuts or abrasions on their hands they're
almost certain to get infected with the awful stuff, and you'll be
kept busy doctoring them. Then, the first thing, along comes a gale and
you're shorthanded, and there's the devil to pay.”

“Aye!” Mr. MacLean interrupted solemnly. “I dinna care for creosote
mysel', sir; so, wi' your kind permission, I'll hae ma time--an' I'll
hae it noo.”

Matt Peasley bent upon the recalcitrant Scotchman a withering glare.
“Very well, Mr. MacLean,” he said presently, “I never could sail in the
same ship with a quitter; so you might as well go now, when we can part
good friends.” He turned to Mr. Murphy. “How about you, Mike? Are you
going to run out on me, too?”

Now, as between the Irish and the Scotch, history records no
preponderance of courage in either, for both are Gaels and a comparison
is difficult.

However, Scotchmen are a conservative race and will walk round a fight
rather than be forced into it, while all that is necessary to make an
Irishman fight is to impugn his courage.

Mr. Murphy had seen the fight ahead of the Retriever and he did not
blame Mr. MacLean for side-stepping it. Indeed, he had intended pursuing
the same course; but Matt Peasley, by his latest remark, had rendered
that impossible. To desert now would savor of dishonor; and, moreover,
Matt Peasley, though master, had called him by his Christian name. Mr.
Murphy touched his forelock respectfully.

“I am not Scotch,” he announced, with a slight emphasis on the pronoun.
“Shame on you, Angus MacLean--ditching the skipper like that!”

“Sticks an' stones may break ma bones, but names'll never hur-rt
me,” Mr. MacLean retorted. “I tell ye I dinna care for creosote in ma
porridge.” And he followed Matt Peasley aft, where the latter paid him
off and gave him five minutes to pack and get off the ship. Immediately
after supper the cook followed the second mate; but, since the former
was a Jap and probably the worst marine cook in the world, his departure
occasioned no heartache.

“We'll board at the mill cook-house until we're loaded, Mike,” Matt
Peasley informed the mate. “They have a good Chink up there.”

Mr. Murphy sighed as he loaded his pipe and struck a match for it.

“It does look to me, sir,” he replied, with that touch of conscious
superiority so noticeable in the Celt, “as though Cappy Ricks might have
slipped this cargo to a Dutchman.”

The Retriever commenced taking on cargo at seven o'clock the following
morning, with Mr. Murphy on shipboard and Matt Peasley on the dock
superintending the gang of stevedores. Ordinarily the masters of lumber
freighters ship their crews before commencing to load, in order that
sailors at forty dollars a month may obviate the employment of an equal
number of stevedores at forty cents an hour; but Mr. Murphy, out of his
profound experience, advised against this course, as tending to spread
the news of the Retriever's misfortune and militate against securing a
crew when the vessel should be loaded and lying in the stream ready for
sea. Men employed now, he explained, would only desert. The thing to
do was to let a Seattle crimp furnish the crew, sign them on before the
shipping commissioner in Seattle, bring them aboard drunk, tow to sea,
and let the rascals make the best of a bad bargain.

The hold was about half filled, and the ship carpenters were at work
cutting ports in the Retriever's bows, when Matt Peasley discovered that
the mill did not have in hand any order for lumber to be used as stowage
to snug up the cumbersome cargo below decks and keep it from rolling and
working in a seaway. Accordingly he wired his owners as follows:

                         Cosmopolis, Washington, July 7, 19--.

  Blue Star Navigation Company,
    258 California St.,
      San Francisco, California.

  No stowage.

                                                  Peasley.

Cappy Ricks having deliberately conspired to hang a series of dirty
cargoes on his newest skipper, for the dual purpose of teaching Matt
Peasley his place and discovering whether he was worthy of it, grinned
evilly when he received that two-word message; and, not to be out-done
in brevity, he dictated this answer:

                         San Francisco, California, July 7, 19--.

  Captain Matthew Peasley,
    Master Barkentine Retriever,
      Care Weatherby's mill, Cosmopolis, Wash.

  Know it.

                                Blue Star Navigation Company.

Matt Peasley's cheeks burned when he read that message. Indeed, could
Cappy Ricks have been privileged to hear the terse remarks his telegram
elicited, there is no doubt he would have sent Mr. Skinner up to the
custom-house immediately to file a certificate of change of master.

“Ha!” Mr. Murphy snorted when Matt showed him the message. “I get the
old sinner now. This is to be a grudge fight, Captain Matt. You wished
yourself onto him in Cape Town against his will, and now he's made up
his mind that so long as you wanted the job it's yours--only he'll
make you curse the day you ever moved your sea chest into the skipper's
cabin. He's going to send us into dogholes to load and open roadsteads
to discharge; and if he can find a dirty cargo anywhere we'll get it.
But it's carrying a grudge too far not to give us stowage.”

“Well, it's his ship,” Matt Peabody declared passionately. “If the
old thief can gamble on good weather I guess I can gamble on my
seamanship--and yours.”

The mate inclined his head at the delicate compliment; and Matt,
observing this, decided that a few more of the same from time to time
would do much to alleviate a diet of creosote.



CHAPTER XIII. AN OLD FRIEND RETURNS AND CAPPY LEADS ANOTHER ACE


Three days before the Retriever finished loading, the captain wired a
trustworthy Seattle crimp recommended by Mr. Murphy, instructing him to
send down a second mate, eight seamen and a good cook--and to bring them
drunk, because the vessel was laden with creosoted piling. Captain Noah
Kendall, Matt's predecessor on the Retriever, had been raised on clipper
ships and as he grew old had allowed himself the luxury of a third mate,
to which arrangement Cappy Ricks, having a certain affection for Captain
Noah, had never made any objection; but something whispered to Matt
Peasley that the quickest route to Cappy's heart would be via a short
payroll, so he concluded to dispense with a third mate and tack ten
dollars a month extra on the pay-check of the excellent Murphy.

The Retriever was lying in the stream fully loaded when the crew
arrived, convoyed by the crimp's runner. In accordance with instructions
they were drunk, the crimp having furnished his runner with a two-gallon
jug of home-made firewater upon leaving Seattle. One man--the second
mate--was fairly sober, however, and while the launch that bore him to
the Retriever was still half a mile from the vessel the breezes brought
him an aroma which could not, by any possibility, be confused with the
concentrated fragrance of the eight alcoholic breaths being exhaled
around him. Muttering deep curses at his betrayal, he promptly leaped
overboard and essayed to swim ashore. The runner pursued him in the
launch, however, and gaffed him by the collar with a boat-hook; the
launch-man, for a consideration, aided the runner, and the unwilling
wretch was carried struggling to purgatory.

“Oh, look who's here!” Mr. Murphy yelled to the skipper, as
the bedraggled second mate was propelled forcibly up the ship's
companion-ladder to the waiting arms of the first mate. “Welcome home,
Angus, my lad.”

It was Mr. MacLean, their quondam second mate, cast back on the deckload
of the Retriever by the resurgent tide of maritime misfortune. Mr.
Murphy sat down and held himself by the middle and laughed until the
tears ran down his ruddy cheeks, while Matt Peasley joined heartily in
the mirth. The unfortunate Mr. MacLean also wept--but from other causes,
to wit--grief and rage.

“I'm happy to have you with us again, Mr. MacLean,” Matt saluted the
second mate. “While your courage and loyalty might be questioned, your
ability may not. So the crimp swindled you, eh? Told you he wanted you
for another ship and then switched the papers on you, eh?”

“You should never trust a crimp, Angus,” Mr. Murphy warned him. “And you
should never do business with them unless you're cold sober. Let this be
a lesson to you, my lad. Never be a drinking man and you'll never have
to go to a crimp for a snug berth. Run along to your old room, now,
Angus, and shift into some dry clothes, if you expect to finish the
voyage.”

“I'll gie ye ma worrd I'll desert in th' discharrgin' port!” Mr. MacLean
burred furiously. “Ye hae me noo, body an' bones--”

“Aye, and we'll keep you, Angus. Have no fear of that. And you'll not
desert in the discharging port. I'll see to that,” Matt Peasley assured
him.

When the last man had been assisted aboard Matt signaled for the tug he
had engaged. By the time she had hooked on and towed them over the bar
three of the seamen were sober enough to assist the skipper and the
mates in getting all plain sail, with the exception of the square sails,
on her, and, with a spanking nor'west breeze on her quarter she rolled
away into the horizon.

Despite the fact that the Retriever's bottom was rather foul with marine
growth, and the further fact that her master had to lay her head under
her wing in a blow which, with an ordinary cargo, he would have bucked
right into, the run to Antofagasta was made in average time. And when
Matt Peasley went ashore to report by cable to his owners he discovered
that Cappy Ricks had provided him with a cargo of nitrate for Makaweli.

“What did I tell you, sir?” Mr. Murphy growled when the captain informed
him of the owners' orders. “I tell you, sir, the dirtiest cargo Cappy
Ricks can find is too good for us. Praise be, the worst we can get at
Makaweli is a sugar cargo.”

Mr. Murphy's grudge against nitrate lay in the annoyance incident to
taking on the cargo properly. Nitrate is very heavy and cannot, like
sugar, be loaded flush with the hatches, thus rendering shifting of the
cargo impossible. In loading nitrate a stout platform must be erected
athwart ship, above the keelsons, in order that the foundation of the
cargo may be laid level; for, as the sacked nitrate is piled, the pile
must be drawn in gradually until the sides meet in a peak like a roof.
It must then be braced and battened securely with heavy timbers from
each side of the ship, in order that the dead weight may be held in the
center of the ship and keep her in trim. Woe to the ship that shifts a
cargo of nitrate in a heavy gale; for it is a tradition of the sea that,
once a vessel rolls her main yard under, she will not roll it back, and
ultimately is posted at Lloyd's as missing.

When the cargo was out Mr. Murphy went ashore and purchased a lot of
Chinese punk, which he burned in the hold, with the hatches battened
down, while Mr. MacLean, who had once been a druggist's clerk, and who,
by the way, had concluded to stay by the ship, sloshed down the decks
with an aromatic concoction mixed by a local apothecary. The remnant of
their spoiled stores Matt Peasley, like a true Yankee, sawed off to good
advantage on a trustful citizen of Antofagasta, and credited the ship
with the proceeds; after which he got his nitrate aboard and squared
away for the Hawaiian Islands.

The run to Makaweli was very slow, for the ship was logy with the grass
and barnacles on her bottom. At Makaweli he found a sugar cargo awaiting
him for discharge at Seattle; and, thanks to the northwest trades at her
quarter, the Retriever wallowed home reasonably fast.



CHAPTER XIV. INSULT ADDED TO INJURY


When Matt Peasley's report of that long voyage reached the Blue Star
Navigation Company it was opened by Mr. Skinner, who, finding no letter
enclosed, had a clerk check and verify it, and then pass it on to old
Cappy Ricks.

“Where's the letter that came with this report, Skinner?” Cappy piped.

“He didn't enclose one, Mr. Ricks.”

“Im-possible!”

“All of Captain Peasley's communications with this office since he
entered our employ have been by wire.”

“But--dad-burn the fellow, Skinner--why doesn't he write and tell us
something?”

“About what?”

“Why, about his ship, his voyage--any old thing. An owner likes to have
a report on his property once in a while, doesn't he? Unless we happen
to charter the Retriever for a cargo to her home port, you know very
well, Skinner, we may not see her for years. Besides, I've never seen
the man Peasley, and if he'd only write now and then I could get a
line on him from his letters. I can always tell a fool by the letter he
writes, Skinner.”

“Well, then,” Skinner replied. “Peasley must be a wise man, because he
never writes at all. The only specimen of that fellow's handwriting I've
ever seen is his signature on the drafts he draws against us. You will
notice that he has even engaged a stenographer--at his own expense, so
the clerk informs me--to typewrite his statement of account.”

“Then that explains it, Skinner. The big-fisted brute can't write a hand
that anybody could read. But, still, he should have dictated a letter,
Skinner. The least he might have done was to say: 'Enclosed herewith
find my report of disbursements for last voyage.' And then he could have
slipped in some mild complaint about the creosote, the trouble he had in
getting a crew, and so on.

“I don't see why you complain about a lack of correspondence, sir,” Mr.
Skinner protested. “For my part, I think it a profound relief to have a
captain that isn't writing or wiring in complaints about slow dispatch
in loading or discharging, his private feuds with marine cooks and
walking delegates from the Sailors' Union. Confound these fellows that
are always unloading a cargo of woe on their owners! It strikes me that
they're trying to square themselves for incompetence.”

“I agree with you, Skinner. But then, all the Thomaston Peasleys were
quick-tempered and wouldn't be imposed on; and I hate to think I've
picked the only one of the tribe who will dog it and never let a peep
out of him.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Skinner. “I see! You want him to start something with
you, eh?”

Cappy evaded this blunt query, however, and turned his attention to the
report.

“Hello!” he said. “I'm blessed if he hasn't anticipated the very
question I should have asked. Here's a footnote in red ink: 'Decided
not to carry third mate. Two mates ample.' And so two mates are ample,
Skinner, though I used to humor Cap'n Noah with three. This confirms me
in the belief that Peasley must be a young man, Skinner, and not afraid
to stand a watch himself if necessary. And here's another footnote:
'Chief Mate Michael J. Murphy very gallantly declined to leave when
he smelled the creosote, and was a tower of strength when it came to
stowing the nitrate. He holds an unlimited mate's license, is sober,
intelligent, courageous, honest and a hard worker. He goes up for his
master's license this week!”

“Ah-h-h!” Cappy Ricks looked up, smiling. “Skinner,” he declared, “it
is as hard to keep a good man down as it is for a camel to enter the
Kingdom of Heaven--I mean for a rich man to enter a camel--bother! I
mean you can't keep a good man down, Skinner. And this is the reason:
The first mate, Murphy, wanted to leave, but his loyalty would not
permit it. Hence the man Peasley must be a good, fair, decent man, to
inspire such loyalty. He is, and this report proves it. His action in
bringing Murphy to our attention indicates appreciation and a sense of
justice. Good! Skinner, make a note of the qualifications of Michael J.
Murphy for a master's berth and give him the first opening.”

He returned to a perusal of the report.

“Huh! Harump-h-h-h! 'Credit by skipper's rake-off on stores, and so on,
$57.03.' Skinner, that proves the man Peasley is too decent and honest
to accept a commission from the thieves who supply his vessel, because
he knows that if they give him a commission they'll only tack it on to
the bill, where he can't see it. Well! All the Thomaston Peasleys were
honest, Skinner. No thanks to him. Still, it's a shame to give him
another rough deal, for apparently he has--er--many--er--commendable
qualities. Still--er--Skinner, I've just got to have a letter from the
man Peasley, if it is only a letter of resignation. Get him another
dirty cargo, Skinner, the dirtier the better.”

The dirtiest cargo Mr. Skinner could think of, with the exception of a
load of creosoted piling, was another cargo of the same. So he scoured
the market and finally he found one on Puget Sound, whereupon he sent
Matt Peasley a telegram ordering him to tow to the Ranier Mill and
Lumber Company's dock at Tacoma, and load for Callao. At the same time
he wired the Ranier people requesting them to be ready to furnish cargo
to the Retriever the following day--this on the strength of a telegram
from Matt Peasley received the previous day informing his owners that he
was discharged and awaiting orders.



CHAPTER XV. RUMORS OF WAR


When four days had elapsed the manager of the Ranier mill wired the Blue
Star Navigation Company that the Retriever had not yet appeared at their
dock.

Now four days wasted means something to a big barkentine like the
Retriever; and in the absence of any excuse for the delay Cappy Ricks
promptly came to the conclusion that Matt Peasley was ashore in Seattle,
disporting himself after the time-honored custom of deep-sea sailors
home from a long cruise. There could be no other reason for such
flagrant inattention to orders; for, had the man Peasley been ill, the
mate, Murphy, whom the captain vouched for as sober and intelligent,
would have had his superior sent to a hospital and wired the office for
orders.

“Skinner,” said Cappy, “send in a stenographer.”

When the girl appeared Cappy Ricks dictated this wire:

  Captain Matthew Peasley,
    Master Barkentine Retriever,
      Colman Dock, Seattle, Washington.

  Are you drunk, dead or asleep?  You have your orders.  Obey
  them P.D.Q. or turn over command to Chief Mate Murphy.

                                        Alden P. Ricks.

“There!” he shrilled. “I've signed my name to it. Sign a telegram Blue
Star Navigation Company and these infernal skippers think a clerk sent
it; but when they know the boss is on to them they'll jump lively. Bring
me the answer to that as soon as it comes, Skinner.”

However, the answer did not come that day. Indeed, the next day
had almost dragged to a close before Mr. Skinner appeared with this
telegraphic bomb:

  Alden P. Ricks,
    258 California St.,
      San Francisco.

  Neither!  Been waiting my turn to go on dry dock.  On now.
  Didn't reply yesterday because too busy driving toothpicks in
  vessel's bottom to plug up wormholes.  If Murphy hadn't hauled
  into fresh water last time on Grays Harbor while I was in
  Seattle getting my ticket, her bottom would look like a
  colander now.  Sixteen months in the water.  You ought to be
  ashamed to treat a good staunch ship like that.  Off dock day
  after to-morrow; will tow to Tacoma immediately thereafter.
  Meantime expect apology for insulting telegram.

                                                  Peasley.

Sixteen months without dry-docking! Why, her bottom must look like the
devil! Cappy Ricks gazed long and earnestly at his general manager.

“Skinner,” he said, “you're an ass! Why was not this vessel dry-docked
before you sent her to Antofagasta?”

Mr. Skinner lost his temper.

“Because I didn't send her to Antofagasta,” he replied sharply. “You
did! And the reason she wasn't docked is because there isn't a dock on
Grays Harbor. If you wouldn't interfere in the shipping, Mr. Ricks, and
spoil my plans to satisfy your personal whims, the vessel would never
have gone on that long voyage without being cleaned and painted.”

“Enough!” Cappy half screamed. “It's a disgrace! Not another word, sir!
Not another peep out of you. Why didn't you order the man Peasley to
dock her? Why did you leave the decision to him? He knew his vessel was
foul--he thought we ought to know it, also; and naturally he expected
that when we ordered him to Seattle we would have made arrangements to
put him on dry dock. Instead of which he had to make them himself; and
I'm shown up as a regular, infernal--er--er--baboon! Yes, sir! Regular
baboon! Nice spectacle you've made of me, getting me into a scrape where
I have to apologize to my own captain! Baboon! Huh! Baboon! Yes; you're
the baboon!”

“Well, I can't think of everything, Mr. Ricks--”

“Everything! Good Lord, man, if you'd only think of something! Send in a
stenographer.”

Mr. Skinner rang for the girl and retired in high dudgeon, while Cappy
Ricks smote his corrugated brow and brought forth the following:

  Captain Matthew Peasley,
    Master Barkentine Retriever,
      Hall's Dry Dock, Eagle Harbor, Wash.

  “Yes; that was a grave oversight sending you to Antofagasta
  without docking you first.  Express my appreciation of Murphy's
  forethought in killing some of the worms.  Am not kind of owner
  that lets a ship go to glory to make dividends.  Keep your
  vessel in top-notch shape at all times, though I realize this
  instruction unnecessary to you.  Give the old girl all that is
  coming to her, including two coats X. & Y. copper paint.
  Replace all planking that looks suspicious.

                                        Alden P. Ricks.

“I guess that's friendly enough,” he soliloquized. “I think he'll
understand. I don't have to crawl in the dirt to let him know I'm
sorry.”

Cappy had recovered his composure by the following morning and was
addressing Mr. Skinner as “Skinner, my dear boy,” when another telegram
from Matt Peasley created a very distinct variation in his mental
compass. It ran as follows:

  Alden P. Ricks,
    258 California St.
      San Francisco.

  X. & Y. copper paint no good.  That brand used last time; hence
  worms got to her quickly.  Giving her two coats O. & Z.  Costs
  more, but does the business.  Renewed about a dozen planks.
  Repair bill about offsets profit on that infernal nitrate.
  Your apology accepted, but do not say that again!

                                                  Peasley.

“'Your apology is accepted!'” Cappy's voice rose, shrill with anger.
“Why, the infernal--er--er--porpoise! Me apologize to a man I employ!
By jingo, I'd fire him first! Yes, sir--fire him like that!” The old man
snapped his fingers.

“Really, Skinner, I don't know what I'm going to do about the man
Peasley. I want to befriend him, because he's one of my own people, so
to speak; but I greatly fear, Skinner, I shall have to rough him. Here
he is, disputing with me--with me, Skinner--the relative merits of
copper paint. And not only disputing, sir, but disobeying my specific
instructions. Also, he permits himself the luxury of criticism.
Well! I'll not fire him this time; but, by the gods, I'll give him a
blowing-up he'll remember. Skinner, send in a stenographer.”

“Take letter,” the old man ordered presently, and proceeded to dictate:

  Captain Matthew Peasley,
    Master Barkentine Retriever,
      Care Rainier M. & L. Co.,
        Tacoma, Washington.

  Sir:--Your night letter of the fifth is before me and treasured
  for its unparalleled effrontery.

  Please be advised that in future, when an extraordinary outlay
  of cash for your vessel's accounts is contemplated, this office
  should first be consulted.  When, in your judgment, your vessel
  requires docking, repairs, new spars, canvas, and so on, you
  will apprise us before proceeding to run up a bill of expense
  on your owners.  Your business is to navigate your vessel.
  Spending money judiciously is a fine art which no sailor, to my
  knowledge, has ever acquired.

  Though admitting that the vessel needed docking, I maintain you
  should have wired us of that fact, whereupon we would have
  ordered you to the dry dock patronized by this company.  It is
  customary for owners to express a preference for dry docks and
  copper paint; and in presuming to go counter to my specific
  instructions in the matter of paint you are prejudicing your
  future prospects with this company.

  Another exhibition of your arrogance, impudence, general bad
  manners and lack of knowledge of the ethics of your profession
  will result in prompt dismissal from the service of the Blue
  Star Navigation Company.

                                      Yours, and so on,
                                        Alden P. Ricks, President



CHAPTER XVI. WAR!


The receipt of Cappy Ricks' letter actually frightened Matt Peasley for
about thirty seconds. Then he reread the last paragraph. Like a dutiful
servant he forgave Cappy the letter's reference to arrogance, impudence
and general bad manners; but the reference to his lack of knowledge of
the ethics of his profession made him fighting mad.

Cappy Ricks might just as well have passed him the supreme insult of the
seas: “Aw, go buy a farm!” He showed the letter to Mr. Murphy.

“Why, that's adding insult to injury!” the mate declared
sympathetically.

The youthful master threw up both hamlike hands in token of complete
surrender and profound disgust.

“There's the gratitude of an owner!” he raved. “He wires me my loading
orders and never says a word about docking--though as managing owner
it's up to him to know when the vessel needs docking. I can't plan her
comings and goings so that at the proper time she'll find herself at
a port with a dry dock. Of course when he wired me my loading orders
I realized he wasn't going to dock me; so I took matters into my own
hands. Why, Mike, I wouldn't skipper a ship so foul she can hardly
answer her helm. How could I know he'd forgotten she needed docking? I'm
not a mind reader.”

“I suppose he's been so busy hunting another dirty cargo for us he
hadn't time to think of the vessel,” Mr. Murphy sneered, and added: “The
dirty old skin-flint!”

“Well, I'll just tell Cappy Ricks where to head in!” Matt stormed. “Let
him fire me if he wants to. I don't care to sail a ship--particularly a
dirty ship--for any man who thinks I don't know my business. Mike, I'm
going to send him a telegram that'll burn his meddling old fingers.”

“Give him hell for me!” pleaded Mr. Murphy. “If he fires you I'll quit,
too.”

The result of this colloquy was that Cappy Ricks received this night
letter the following morning:

  Alden P. Ricks,
    258 California St.,
      San Francisco.

  Referring your letter.  Men that taught me nautical ethics
  expected things done without orders, minus thanks for doing
  them well, plus abuse for doing them poorly.  Regard your
  criticism as out of place.  Am not the seventh son of a seventh
  son.  How could I know you had overlooked fact that vessel
  needed docking?  Your business to plan my voyages to get me to
  dry-dock port at least once a year.  When you wired loading
  orders, concluded you were cheap owner; hence decided dock her
  without orders.  Expect to be fired sooner or later, but will
  leave good ship behind me so my successor cannot say, “Peasley
  let her run down.”  Had I waited orders, vessel would have been
  ruined.  Yet you have not sufficient grace to express your
  thanks.  Had I not acted in this emergency, you would have
  fired me later for incompetence, and blacklisted me for not
  telling you what you know you ought to know without being told.

  Referring copper paint, I know from practical experience which
  brand is best; you know only what paint dealer tells you.  Will
  not stand abuse for knowing my business and attending to it
  without instructions from landlubber!  When you appointed me
  you said remember speed synonymous with dividends in shipping
  business.  How can I make fast passages with whiskers two feet
  long on my keel?  Send new flying jib and spanker next loading
  port.  Send new skipper, too, if you feel that way about it.

                                                  Peasley.

“Well, Skinner,” Cappy Ricks declared, “this is the first time a skipper
in my employ ever talked back--and it'll be the last. I've had enough
of this fellow's impudence, Skinner. He's right at that--blast him--but
he's too much of a sea lawyer; and I won't have any employee of mine
telling me how to run my business. Send in a stenographer.”

When the stenographer entered Cappy Ricks said:

“Ahem-m! Harump-h-h-h! Take telegram: 'Captain Matthew Peasley, care
Rainier Mill and Lumber Company, Tacoma, Washington. You're fired!
Ricks.' Ahem! Huh! Har-ump! Take 'nother telegram: 'Mr. Michael
J. Murphy, First Mate Barkentine Retriever'--same address as
Peasley--'Accept this telegram as your formal appointment to command of
our barkentine, Retriever, vice Matthew Peasley, discharged this day;
forwarding to-morrow certificate of change of master.' Sign that: 'Blue
Star Navigation Company, per Alden P. Ricks,' and get both telegrams on
the wire right away.”

Cappy turned to Mr. Skinner and chuckled sardonically.

“I'll bet that will gravel the man Peasley,” he declared. “There's
nothing harder on a captain than being fired, and succeeded by his
own mate--particularly after he has so recently recommended that mate!
Peasley will be wild--the pup!”

“Well,” Mr. Skinner replied, “appointing Mr. Murphy certainly has this
advantage,--he's there on the ground and we are thus spared the expense
of sending a man from here.”

“That's one of the reasons why I appointed him--one of three very
excellent reasons, in fact. Now we'll wait and see what the man Peasley
has to say to that telegram.”

They had to wait about two hours, and this was what Matt Peasley had to
say:

  “Many thanks.  The second mate and the cook quit the minute
  they discovered it was to be another cargo of creosoted piling;
  and now that I am fired Mr. Murphy has concluded that he might
  as well quit also.  Will stick by ship, however, until you send
  my successor; meantime loading continues as usual.”

“Well, that's what the man Peasley says!” Cappy snapped. “Murphy's quit,
eh? Well, I guess Mr. Murphy hadn't received my telegram when Peasley
sent this message. It'll take more than a cargo of creosoted piling to
keep Murphy out of the master's cabin when he hears from me.”

The stenographer entered with another telegram.

“Ah!” Cappy remarked, and rubbed his hands together in pleased
anticipation. “I dare say this is from Mr. Murphy.”

It was; and this is what the loyal Murphy had to say:

  “I thank you for the consideration.  Very sweet of you; but I
  wouldn't work for you again on a bet.  You couldn't hand me a
  ripe peach!  Master or mate, creosote tastes the same to me.
  At Captain Peasley's request am staying by vessel until new
  master arrives and hires new mate.  Would have stuck by vessel
  for Old Man's sake if you'd slipped us cargo of uncrated
  rattlesnakes; but since I encouraged him to tell you things for
  good of your soul and you fired him for it I must decline to
  profit by his misfortune.”

Silently Cappy Ricks folded that telegram and laid it on his desk; his
head sagged forward on his breast and he fell to meditating deeply.
Finally he looked up and eyed Mr. Skinner over the rims of his
spectacles.

“Skinner,” he said solemnly, “do you realize, my boy, that we have two
extremely remarkable men on the barkentine Retriever?”

“They are certainly most remarkably deficient in respect to their
superiors, though in all probability exceedingly capable seamen,” Mr.
Skinner answered sympathetically, for he had great veneration for the
creator of the pay roll.

“I know,” Cappy replied sadly; “but then, you know, Skinner, the good
Lord must certainly hate a bootlicker! Skinner, I simply cannot afford
to lose those two damned scoundrels in the Retriever. They're good men!
And a good man who knows he's good will not take any slack from man or
devil; so I cannot afford to lose those two. Skinner, I've got myself
into an awful mess. Here I've been running by dead reckoning and now I'm
on the rocks! What'll I do, Skinner? I'm licked; but, dang it all, sir,
I can't admit it, can I? Isn't there some way to referee this scrap and
call it a draw?”

“I see no way out of it now except to send another captain to Tacoma.”

“Skinner,” he declared, “you're absolutely no use to me in an emergency.
When I made you my general manager, on a bank president's salary, I
thought I'd be able to take it easy for the rest of my life.” He
wagged his head sadly. “And what's the result? I work harder than ever.
Skinner, if I hadn't any more imagination than you possess I'd be out
there on the corner of California and Market Streets peddling lead
pencils this minute. Leave this problem to me, Skinner. I suppose I'll
find a way out of it, with entire honor to all concerned. Holy sailor!”
 he added. “But that man Murphy is loyal--and loyalty is a pretty scarce
commodity these days, let me tell you!”



CHAPTER XVII. CAPPY FORCES AN ARMISTICE


During the week that succeeded, Cappy Ricks did not once mention the
subject of the Retriever and her recalcitrant skipper and mate; and Mr.
Skinner argued from this that all was well. Finally one day Cappy came
into the office and paused beside the general manager's desk. He was
grinning like a boy.

“Well, Skinner,” he piped. “I've just come from the Merchants' Exchange
and I see by the blackboard that our Retriever cleared for Antofagasta
yesterday.”

“Indeed!” Mr. Skinner replied politely. “So you found a captain for her.
Whom did you send?”

“Nobody,” the old man cackled. “Matt Peasley took her out, and the
manager of the Rainier mill wires me that Murphy went with him as chief
kicker. What do you think of that?”

“Why, I'm--er--satisfied if you are, sir.”

“Well, you can bet I'm satisfied. If I wasn't I'd have a revenue cutter
out after the man Peasley and his mate right now. By golly, Skinner,” he
piped, and slapped his wizened flank, “I tell you I've worked this deal
pretty slick, if I do say it myself. And all on dead reckoning--dead
reckoning, and not a single day of demurrage!”

“Oh! So you wired Peasley and the mate and asked them to go back to work
and forget they were discharged?” Mr. Skinner suggested witheringly.

“Skinner, on my word, you grow worse every day. You've been with me, man
and boy, twenty-odd years, and in all that time you never saw anybody
cover me with blood, did you?”

“No, sir.”

“And you never will. Why, I managed this affair by simply forgetting all
about it! When you're in a jam, Skinner, always let the other fellow
do the talking. I just sat tight until I had a telegram from the man
Peasley, informing me that the vessel would be loaded in two days and
that his successor had not appeared as yet. I threw that telegram in my
wastebasket; and when the vessel was loaded I had another telegram from
Peasley, saying that the vessel was loaded, that his successor was still
missing, and the mill manager was kicking and insisting that the ship be
hauled away from the dock to make room for a steam schooner which wanted
to load. So I filed that telegram in the wastebasket also. It was a
night letter, delivered in the morning.

“When Peasley didn't get an answer by noon he wired again, saying that,
as a favor to me, he would haul the Retriever into the stream, but would
accept no responsibility for delay thereafter. He said further that, as
a courtesy to me and his successor, he was shipping a crew that day
in order that there might be no delay in sailing when the new captain
arrived; so I thought I had better reply to that telegram, Skinner--and
I did!”

“What did you say, Mr. Ricks?”

“I said: 'Please do not annoy me with your telegrams. You were fired
a week ago, but it seems difficult for you to realize that fact. If
demurrage results through my failure to get new skipper there in time,
that is no skin off your nose. Your pay goes on until you are relieved,
and you will be relieved when I get good and ready.' That telegram
did the business, Skinner. He received it the day before yesterday and
yesterday he towed out!”

Cappy Ricks burst into a shrill senile cackle that was really good to
hear. As they grow old most men lose that capacity for a hearty laugh,
but Cappy's perversity had kept him young at heart. The tears of mirth
cascaded down his seamed old countenance now, and he had to sit down and
have his laugh out.

“Oh, thunder!” he panted. “Really, Skinner--there's so much fun in
business I wonder why a man can retire--just because he's made his pile!
Skinner, I had it on the man Peasley a thousand miles--and he never
guessed it! Dear, dear me! You see, Skinner, when he wired me he would
not accept responsibility for demurrage to the vessel after she was
loaded and hauled into the stream, he forgot that he had to accept
responsibility for the vessel himself until his successor should arrive!

“Of course, the man Murphy could quit any time he desired; but if the
skipper deserted the ship before being properly relieved, and then
something happened to the vessel and I preferred charges against him,
the inspectors might be induced to revoke his license--and he realized
that. The knowledge made him hopping mad, Skinner; and when he got my
telegram I knew he would begin to figure out some plan to make me
mad! And, of course, I knew Murphy would help him out--the Irish are
imaginative and vindictive; and--oh, dear me, Skinner--read that!” And
Cappy handed his general manager the following telegram:

  You are right.  I will be relieved when I get good and ready,
  and I will not be ready until I get back from Antofagasta.
  Shipped crew yesterday afternoon.  All arrived drunk.  Next
  morning all hands sober.  Realizing predicament, riot resulted.
  Fearing lose crew, Murphy and I manhandled and locked in
  fo'castle.  When your telegram arrived it found Murphy minus
  front tooth, myself black eye.  Can stand injury, but not
  insult.  Hence you are stuck with us for another voyage,
  whether you want us or not.  Will have towed out by time you
  receive this.  Go to Halifax!

                                                  Peasley.

Mr. Skinner's face was cold and austere as he handed this telegram back
to Cappy.

“So you made peace with honor, eh?” he sneered.

“Peace your grandmother!” Cappy chirped. “This war goes on until I get
a letter from the man Peasley. Skinner, he and Murphy think they've done
something wonderfully brilliant. When I wired him he would be relieved
when I got good and ready it did him an awful lot of good to throw the
words back in my face. Sure, Skinner! They think they're giving Cappy
Ricks the merry ha-ha!”

“Well, of course, sir,”' said Mr. Skinner, “if this sort of horseplay
is your fun--if it's your notion of business--I have no comment. You own
fifteen-sixteenths of the Retriever, and you can afford to pay for your
fancies; but if it was the last act of my life I'd fire that man Peasley
in Callao and let him get home as best he could.”

“Yes; I know,” Cappy replied bitterly. “You fired him in Cape Town
once--and how did he come home? He came home in the cabin of the
Retriever--that's how he came home; and the Terrible Swede I sent to
thrash him and fire him came home under hatches. Yes; you'd do a lot of
things, Skinner--in your mind.”

Mr. Skinner pounded his desk savagely. Cappy's retort made him boiling
mad.

“Well, I'll bet I'd do something,” he rasped. “I'd make that bucko
suffer or I'd know the reason why.”

“Skinner, that's just what we're going to do--just what we're doing, in
fact. One of my ancestors sailed with the late John Paul Jones and ever
since the Ricks' family motto has been: 'I have not yet begun to fight.'
Now listen to reason, Skinner. The Retriever just came off dry-dock,
didn't she? Well, it stands to reason she was dirty after that last
cargo of creosoted piling; and it stands to reason, also, that the man
Peasley slicked her up with white paint until she looked like an Easter
bride. A Scandinavian doesn't give a hoot if his vessel is tight, well
found and ready for sea; but a Yankee takes a tremendous pride in
his ship and likes to keep her looking like a yacht. And just think,
Skinner, how the man Peasley must have felt when he came off dry dock,
all clean and nice, and then had to slop her up with another cargo of
creosoted piling? Just think of that, Skinner!” and again he commenced
his insane cackle.

“I have other, and more important things to think about,” Mr. Skinner
retorted icily. As a business man he was opposed to levity in the
office. “What are your plans with reference to the Retriever? Do you
wish to bring her back from Antofagasta in ballast?”

“Why, certainly not. Hunt a cargo for her, Skinner. We might just as
well let the man Peasley know that though he's gone he's not forgotten.
Use the cable freely and see if you can't pick up something for the
return trip that will make those two firebrands sick at the stomach.”

A month later Mr. Skinner stepped into Cappy's sanctum.

“Well,” he announced. “I've got a return cargo for the Retriever.”

“What have you got?” Cappy demanded anxiously; and Mr. Skinner told him.

“No?” said Cappy incredulously.

“Yes!” Mr. Skinner assured him.

Cappy's laughter testified to his hearty approval.

“Skinner, my dear boy,” he cried. “I don't know what I'd do without
you.”

And then he laid his wicked old head on his desk and laughed until he
wept. Indeed, Mr. Skinner so far forgot his code as to laugh with him.

“We'll stink those two vagabonds--those maritime outlaws--out of the
ship,” he declared.



CHAPTER XVIII. THE WAR IS RENEWED


The belief that they had come off victorious in their skirmish with
Cappy Ricks cheered Matt Peasley and his mate for the first two weeks
out from Puget Sound; after which the creosote commenced to season their
food, and then the victory began to take on the general appearance of
a vacuum. However, thanks to a clean keel and fair winds, they made a
smashing passage and their sufferings were not unduly prolonged.

Immediately on his arrival at Antofagasta the young skipper reported by
cable to his owners, thereby eliciting the following reply from Cappy
Ricks:

  “You stole ship.  If you value your ticket bring her back with
  cargo agent provides.”

Naturally this somewhat cryptic cablegram roused Matt Peasley's
curiosity. He could not rest until he had interviewed the agent--and
after that sop to his inquisitiveness he returned to the Retriever
a broken man. The loyal and disgusted Murphy read the trouble in the
master's face.

“What new deviltry's afoot now, Matt?” he demanded, in his eagerness and
sympathy forgetting the respect due his superior.

“Green hides, Mike!” the skipper answered, in his distress failing to
notice the mate's faux pas and making one himself. “Green hides, old
pal; and they stink something horrible. Back to Seattle with the dirty
mess, and then another cargo of creosoted--”

“King's X!” yelled Mr. Murphy. “I crossed my fingers the minute your
face appeared over the rail. I quit--and I quit as soon as this piling
is out. I tell you I won't keep company with green hides. No, sir; I
won't. I tell you I will--not--do it! Why, we might as well have a dead
hog in the hold! Captain Matt, I hate to throw you down in a foreign
port; but this--is absolutely--the finish!”

“Do you value your ticket, Mike?” the captain queried ominously.

“What's a ticket when a man's lost his self-respect?” Mr. Murphy raved.

Matt handed him Cappy's cablegram and the mate read it.

“I think that bet goes double, Mike,” the skipper warned him. “You
signed for the round trip. I've got to go through--and there's strength
in numbers.”

“Well,” said Mr. Murphy reluctantly, “I suppose I do attach a
certain--er--sentimental value to my ticket.”

“I thought you would. Cappy's got us by the short hair, Mike; and the
only thing to do is to fly to it, with all sails set. We must never let
on he's given us anything out of the ordinary.”

Mr. Murphy shivered; for, as Cappy had remarked to Mr. Skinner, the mate
was Irish, hence imaginative. He imagined he smelled the green hides
already, and quite suddenly he gagged and sprang for the rail. Poor
fellow! He had stood much of late and his stomach was a trifle sensitive
from a diet of creosote straight.

Somehow they got the awful cargo aboard, though, at that, there were
not sufficient hides to half load her; in consequence of which all hands
realized that Cappy had merely given them this dab of freight to sicken
them. They cursed him all the way back to Seattle, where the crew quit
the minute the vessel was made fast to the dock.



CHAPTER XIX. CAPPY SEEKS PEACE


“Here's a telegram for you, sir,” Mr. Murphy remarked when Matt Peasley
came aboard after cashing a draft on the Blue Star Navigation Company to
pay off his crew. It proved to be from Cappy Ricks and said merely:

“Discharge that cargo of hides or take the consequences!”

“The old sinner thought I'd dog it, I suppose,” Matt sneered, as he
passed the message to Mr. Murphy, who shivered as he read it. “I guess
you're elected, Mike,” the skipper continued. “The second mate has quit.
However, it isn't going to be very hard on you this time. I was speaking
to the skipper of that schooner in the berth ahead of us, and he gave me
a recipe for killing the perfume of a cargo of green hides.”

“If he'd given it to us in Antofagasta, I'd name a ship after him some
day,” Mr. Murphy mourned.

“Well, we've gotten it in time to be of some use,” Matt declared. “You
don't suppose I'm going to let this old snoozer Ricks get away with the
notion that he put one over on us, do you? Shall we haul Old Glory down?
No! Never! I'll just switch off the laughing gas on Cappy Ricks,” and
the young skipper went ashore and wired his managing owner as follows:

  “Green hides are the essence of horror if you do not know how
  to handle them.  Fortunately I do.  Pour water on a green hide
  and you muzzle the stink.  I judge from your last telegram you
  thought you handed me something.”

When Cappy Ricks got that telegram he flew into a rage and refused to
believe Matt Peasley's statement until he had first called up a dealer
in hides and confirmed it. The entire office staff wondered all that day
what made Cappy so savage.

By the following day, however, Cappy's naturally optimistic nature had
reasserted itself. He admitted to himself that he had fanned out, but
still the knowledge brought him some comfort.

“He's walloped me so,” Cappy soliloquized, “he just can't help writing
and crowing about it. If I didn't do anything else I bet I've pried
a letter out of him. It certainly will be a comfort to see something
except a telegram and a statement of account from that fellow.”

However, when the report of the voyage arrived, Mr. Skinner reported
that it contained no letter. Cappy's face reflected his disappointment.

“I guess you'll have to go stronger than green hides to get a yelp out
of that fellow,” Mr. Skinner predicted.

“Why, there isn't anything stronger than a cargo of green hides,
Skinner,” Cappy declared thoughtfully. He clawed his whiskers a moment.
Then: “What have you got for her on the Sound, Skinner?”

“Nothing nasty, sir. We'll have to give him a regular cargo this
time--that is, unless he quits. I've got a cargo for Sydney, ready at
our own mill at Port Hadlock.”

“Well, he hasn't resigned yet,” Cappy declared; “so we might as well
beat him to it. Wire him, Skinner, to tow to our mill at Port Hadlock
and load for Sydney. If he believes we're willing to call this thing
a dead heat he may conclude to stick. Tell him this is a nice cargo.”
 Again Cappy clawed his whiskers. “Sydney, eh?” he said musingly. “That's
nice! We can send him over to Newcastle from there to pick up a cargo
of coal, and maybe he'll come home afire! If we can't hand him a stink,
Skinner, we'll put a few gray hairs in his head.”

These instructions Mr. Skinner grudgingly complied with; and Matt
Peasley, with his hatches wide open and buckets of punk burning in the
hold to dispel the lingering fragrance of his recent cargo--concluding
that, on the whole, he and Mr. Murphy had come through the entire affair
very handsomely indeed--towed down to Hadlock and commenced to take on
cargo. If Cappy Ricks was willing to declare a truce then Matt Peasley
would declare one too.

Matt's peaceful acquiescence in his owner's program merely served to
arouse Cappy Ricks' abnormal curiosity. The more he thought of Matt
Peasley the greater grew his desire for a closer scrutiny. The most
amazing man in the world had been in his employ a year and a half, and
as yet they had never met; unless the Retriever should happen to be
loaded for San Francisco years might elapse before they should see each
other; and now that he had attained to his allotted three score years
and ten Cappy decided that he could no longer gamble on the future.

He summoned Mr. Skinner.

“Skinner, my dear boy,” he announced with the naive simplicity that
made him so lovable. “I suppose it's very childish of me, but I have a
tremendous desire to see this extraordinary fellow Peasley.”

“You can afford to satisfy your slightest whim, Mr. Ricks,” he replied.
“I'll load her for San Francisco after she returns from Australia. I
daresay if he ever gets through the Golden Gate he'll call up at the
office.”

“Skinner, I can't wait that long. Many things may happen. Ahem!
Harump-h-h-h! Wire the man Peasley, Skinner, to have his photograph
taken and forwarded to me immediately charging expense.”

“Very well, sir,” Mr. Skinner responded.

“Well, I'll be keel-hauled and skull-dragged,” Matt Peasley declared to
Mr. Murphy. “Here's a telegram from the owners demanding my photograph.”

Mr. Murphy read the amazing message, scratched his raven poll, and
declared his entire willingness to be damned.

“It's a trap,” he announced presently. “Don't send it. Matt, you look
about twenty years old and for the next few years, if you expect to
work under the Blue Star flag, you must remember your face isn't your
fortune. You've got to be pickled in salt for twenty years to please
Cappy Ricks. If he sees your photograph he'll fire you, Matt. I know
that old crocodile. All he wants is an excuse to give you the foot,
anyhow.”

“But he's ordered me to send it, Mike. How am I going to get out of it?”

As has been stated earlier in this tale, Mr. Murphy had an imagination.

“Go over into the town, sir,” he said, “and in any photograph gallery
you can pick up a picture of some old man. Write your name across it and
send it to Cappy. He'll be just as happy, then, as though he had good
sense.”

“By George, I'll just do that!” Matt declared, and forthwith went
ashore.

He sought the only photographer in Port Hadlock. At the entrance to the
shop he found a glass case containing samples of the man's art, and was
singularly attracted to the photograph of a spruce little old gentleman
in a Henry Clay collar, long mutton-chop whiskers, and spectacles.

Moreover, to Matt's practiced eye, this individual seemed to savor of
a Down-Easter. He was just the sort of man one might expect to bear the
name of Matthew Peasley; so the captain mounted the stairs and sought
the proprietor, from whom he purchased the picture in question for the
trifling sum of fifty cents. Then he bore it away to the Retriever,
scrawled his autograph across the old gentleman's hip and mailed the
picture to Cappy Ricks.



CHAPTER XX. PEACE AT LAST!


Mr. Skinner entered Cappy Ricks' office bearing an envelope marked
“Photo. Do not crush or bend!” From the announcement in the upper
right-hand corner the general manager deduced that the photograph was
from Matt Peasley.

“Well, here's Captain Peasley's picture, Mr. Ricks,” he announced.

“Ah! Splendid. Prompt, isn't he?” Cappy tore open the envelope, drew
forth the photograph, scrutinized it carefully and then laid it
face down on his desk, while he got out his spectacles, cleaned them
carefully, adjusted them and gazed at the photograph once more.

“Ahem! Hu-m-m-m! Harump-h-h-h! Well, Skinner, life is certainly full of
glad surprises,” he announced presently, and added--“particularly where
that man Peasley is concerned. I never did see the beat of that fellow.”

“May I see his photograph, sir?” Mr. Skinner pleaded.

“Certainly,” and Cappy passed it to the general manager, who glanced
once at it and smiled down whimsically at Cappy.

“Yes, I agree with you, Mr. Ricks,” he said. “Of all the surprises that
man Peasley has handed us, this is the greatest.”

Cappy nodded and smiled a little prescient smile. “Skinner,” he said,
“send in a stenographer. I'm going to send him a telegram.”

He did. Matt Peasley blinked when he got it, and for the first time
since he had commenced exchanging telegrams and cablegrams with the
peculiar Mr. Ricks he was thoroughly non-plussed--so much so, in fact,
that he called his right bower, Michael J. Murphy, into consultation.

“Mike,” he said, and handed the mate the telegram, “what in the world do
you suppose the old duffer means by that?”

Mr. Murphy read:

  “Matt, I always knew you were young, but I had no suspicion you
  were a child in arms until I received your photograph.”

“Serves you right,” the mate declared. “I told you to send the photo of
an OLD man.”

“But I did, Mike. I sent him a picture of an old pappy-guy sort of man,
with long, mutton-chop whiskers, glasses and an old-fashioned collar as
tall as the taffrail.”

“It beats my time then what he's driving at, Captain Matt. But then one
can never tell what Cappy Ricks is up to. I've heard he's a great
hand to have his little joke, so I daresay that telegram is meant for
sarcasm.”

Matt had a horrifying inspiration. “I know what's wrong,” he cried
bitterly. “He thinks I'm so old I ought to be retired, and that telegram
is in the nature of a hint that a letter, asking for my resignation, is
on the way now.”

“Why--why--why?” Mr. Murphy stuttered, “did you send him the picture of
Methuselah himself? Heaven's sake, skipper, there's a happy medium, you
know. I meant for you to pick yourself out a man of about fifty-five,
and here you've slipped him a patriarch of ninety. Sarcasm! I should say
so.”

They stared at each other a few seconds; then Mr. Murphy had an equally
disturbing inspiration.

“By Neptune!” he suggested, “maybe you sent him the picture of somebody
he knows!”

“Well, in that case, Mike, I'm not going to hang on the hook of
suspicion. Maybe I can find out whose picture I sent,” and away Matt
went up town to the photograph gallery. When he returned ten minutes
later Mr. Murphy, sighting him a block in the offing, knew the skipper
of the barkentine Retriever for a broken man! Beyond doubt he had
shipped a full cargo of grief.

“Well?” he queried as Matt hove alongside. “Did you find out?”

Matt nodded gloomily.

“Who?” Mr. Murphy demanded peremptorily.

“Cappy Ricks!” Matt almost wailed.

“NO!” Mr. Murphy roared.

“Yes! The old scoundrel was up here three years ago, visiting this
mill--you know, Mike, he owns it--and the Retriever was here loading at
the time. He and Captain Kendall were close friends, and they went over
to that photograph shop, had their pictures taken and swapped--and like
a poor, helpless, luckless boob I had to come along and buy the sample
picture the photographer hung in his case. It never occurred to me to
ask questions--and I might have known nobody but a prominent citizen
ever gets into a show-case--”

“Glory, glory, hallelujah,” Mr. Murphy crooned in a deep, chain-locker
voice, and fled from the skipper's wrath.

An hour later, in the privacy of his cabin, Matt Peasley took his pen in
hand and wrote to Cappy Ricks:

  Mr. Alden P. Ricks,
    Dear Sir:--

  I herewith tender my resignation as master of the barkentine
  Retriever, same to take effect on my return from Sydney--or
  before I sail, if you desire.  If I do not hear from you before
  I sail I shall assume that it will be all right to quit when I
  get back from Australia.

  I will not be twenty-three years old until the Fourth of July.
  I was afraid you wouldn't trust me with a big ship like the
  Retriever if you knew; so I sent you a photograph I purchased
  for fifty cents from the local photographer.  I guess that's
  all--except that you couldn't find a better man to take my
  place than Mr. Murphy.  He has had the experience.

                                              Yours truly,
                                                Matt Peasley.

There were tears in his eyes as he dropped that letter into the
mail box. The Blue Star Navigation Company owned the Retriever,
but--but--well she was Matt Peasley's ship and he loved her as men learn
to love their homes. It broke his heart to think of giving her up.

“Skinner,” said Cappy Ricks, “I've got a letter from the man Peasley
at last; and now, by golly, I can quit and take a vacation. Send in
a stenographer.” The stenographer entered. “Take telegram--direct
message,” he ordered, and commenced to dictate:

  Captain Matthew Peasley,

  Your resignation accepted.  You are too almighty good for a
  windjammer, Matthew.  You need more room for the development of
  your talent.  Give Murphy the ship, with my compliments, and
  tell him I've enjoyed the fight because it went to a knock-out.
  Report to me at this office as soon as possible.  You belong
  in steam.  A second mate's berth waiting for you.  In a year
  you will be first mate of steam; a year later you will be
  master of steam, at two-fifty a month, and I will have a
  four-million-foot freighter waiting for you if you make good.
  The picture was a bully joke; but I could not laugh, Matt.  It
  is so long since I was a boy.

                                                    Cappy.

“Send that right away, like a good girl,” he ordered. “He's about loaded
and he may have towed out before the telegram reaches him. Or, better
still, send the message in duplicate--one copy to the mill and the other
in care of the custom-house at Port Townsend. He'll have to touch in
there to clear the ship.”

He walked into Mr. Skinner's office.

“Skinner,” he said, “Murphy has the Retriever, and you're in charge of
the shipping. Attend to the transfer of authority before she gets out of
the Sound.”



CHAPTER XXI. MATT PEASLEY MEETS A TALKATIVE STRANGER


Cappy Ricks' telegram to Matt, in care of the mill at Port Hadlock,
arrived several hours after the Retriever, fully loaded with fir lumber,
had been snatched away from the mill dock by a tug and started on her
long tow to Dungeness, where the hawser would be cast off. It was
not until the vessel came to a brief anchorage in the strait off Port
Townsend, the port of entry to Puget Sound, and Matt went ashore
to clear his ship, that the duplicate telegram sent in care of the
Collector of the Port, was handed to him.

He read and reread it. The news it contained seemed too good to be true.

“I guess I won't clear her after all,” he announced to the deputy
collector.

The official nodded. “I didn't think you would,” he replied. “I have
a telegram from the custom-house at San Francisco, apprising me that
Michael J. Murphy has been appointed master of the Retriever, so if
she's to be cleared Captain Murphy will have to do the job.”

“He's my mate, and if you'll wait about half an hour I'll go get the old
Siwash,” Matt replied happily, and started back to the Retriever in a
hurry. He had been gone less than twenty minutes, a fact noted by the
astute Murphy, who met his superior at the rail as the latter climbed up
the Jacob's ladder.

“Why, you haven't cleared the old girl so soon, have you, sir?” he
queried.

“Read that,” Matt announced dramatically.

Mr. Murphy read the telegram. “Bust my bob-stay!” he murmured. “The
dirty old assassin! The slimy old pile-worm! The blessed old duffer!
After treating us like dogs for a year and a half he gives me the ship,
sets you down for a two year apprenticeship in steam and says he's
going to build you a four-million-foot freighter! The scoundrelly old
renegade! Why, say, Matt, Cappy's been spilling the acid all over us and
we never knew it. Somehow, I have a notion that if we had yelled murder
when he was beating us he'd have had us both out of his employ while
you'd be saying Jack Robinson.”

“I believe you, Mike. But he needn't think he's going to grab two years
of my precious young life before he'll trust me with a steamer. I have
an unlimited license for sail, and if I can pass the examination for
steam before the inspectors--and I can--I'll get my license immediately.
Just consider the old boy's inconsistency, Mike. If a man can handle a
square-rigged ship he ought to be trusted with anything; yet, when
he gives me a steamer you'd think he was giving me a man's job! Fair
weather or foul, you stand on the bridge and control your vessel with
the engine room telegraph. Shucks! I wonder if that crotchety old joker
thinks it will take me two years to learn how to dock a steam schooner?”

Mr. Murphy hitched his trousers, stuck his thumbs in his belt and glared
at Matt Peasley. “See here, you,” he declared, “you're a child wonder,
all right, but the trouble with you is, you hate yourself too much.
Listen to me, kid. I'm the skipper of the Retriever now and you're my
friend, young Matt Peasley, so I can talk to you as a friend. You're a
pretty skookum youth and I'd hate like everything to mix it with you,
but if you start to veto the old man's orders you may look for a fine
thrashing from me when I get back from Australia! I won't have you
making a damned fool of yourself, Matt. If you are in command of a
four-million-foot freighter by the time you're twenty-seven, you'll be
the youngest skipper of steam afloat, and you ought to be down on your
marrow bones giving thanks to the good Lord who has done so much for
you, instead of planning insurrection against Cappy Ricks. The idea!”

“But what sense is there in waiting--”

“When I refereed the scrap between you and All Hands And Feet you took
my advice, didn't you? You didn't say to me then: 'What sense is there
in waiting? Let me go in and finish the job and have done with it,' did
you?”

“But this is business, Mike. For a year and a half Cappy has been having
a whole lot of fun out of me--”

“It might have been fun for him, but it came pretty near being the
death of me,” Mr. Murphy contradicted. “If that jag of green hides from
Antofagasta was a joke, beware of Cappy Ricks when he's serious. He's
serious about you, Matt. He's picked on you sight unseen, and he's going
to do something for you. He's an old man, Matt. Let him have his way and
you'll profit by it.”

“Well, I'll see what he has to say, at any rate,” Matt compromised, and
they went below, Matt to pack his sea chest and Mr. Murphy to shave and
array himself in a manner befitting the master of a big barkentine about
to present himself at the custom-house for the first time to clear his
ship.

An hour later Matt Peasley found himself sitting on his sea chest on the
cap of the wharf, watching the Retriever slipping down the strait under
command of Captain Michael J. Murphy, while a new chief mate, shipped in
Port Townsend, counted off the watches. Presently she turned a bend and
was gone; and immediately he felt like a homeless wanderer. The thought
of the doughty Murphy in that snug little cabin so long sacred to Matt
Peasley brought a pang of near jealousy to the late commander of the
Retriever; as he reflected on the two years of toil ahead of him before
men would again address him as Captain Peasley, he wondered whether the
game really would be worth the candle; for he had all of a Down-Easter's
love for a sailing ship.

He recalled to mind Mr. Murphy's favorite story of the old sailing
skipper who went into steam and who, during his very first watch on the
steamship's bridge, ordered the man at the wheel to starboard his helm,
and then forgot to tell him to steady it--the consequence being that
the helmsman held hard-a-starboard and the ship commenced to describe
a circle; whereupon the old sailing skipper got excited and screamed:
“Back that main yard!” Matt felt that should anything like that happen
to him in steam and the news should ever leak out, he would have to go
back to the Atlantic Coast rather than face the gibes of his shipmates
on the Pacific.

The passenger boat from Victoria picked him up and set him down in
Seattle that night, and the following morning he boarded a train for San
Francisco to report to Cappy Ricks.

At luncheon in the dining car that day Matt Peasley found himself seated
opposite a man who had boarded the train with him at Seattle. As the
young captain plied his knife and fork he was aware that this
person's gaze rested with something more than casual interest on
his--Matt's--left forearm; whereupon the latter realized that his
vis-a-vis yearned to see more of a little decoration which, in the pride
of his first voyage, Matt had seen fit to have tattooed on the aforesaid
forearm by the negro cook. So, since he was the best-natured young man
imaginable, Matt decided presently to satiate his neighbor's curiosity.

“It's a lady climbing a ladder,” he announced composedly and drew back
his sleeve to reveal this sample of black art. “I have a shield and an
eagle on my breast and a bleeding heart, with a dagger stuck through it,
on my right forearm.”

“I didn't mean to be rude,” the other answered, flushing a little. “I
couldn't help noticing the chorus lady's shapely calves when you speared
that last pickle; so I knew you were a sailor. I concluded you were an
American sailor before I learned that you advertise the fact on your
breast, and I was wondering whether you belong in the navy or the
merchant marine.”

“I'm from blue water,” Matt replied pleasantly. “You're in the shipping
business, I take it.”

“Almost--I'm a ship, freight and marine insurance broker.” And the
stranger handed over a calling card bearing the name of Mr. Allan Hayes.
“I'm from Seattle.”

“Peasley is my name, Mr. Hayes,” Matt answered heartily, glad of this
chance acquaintance with a man with whom he could converse on a subject
of mutual interest. “I haven't any post-office address,” he added
whimsically.

“Going over to Columbia River to join your ship, I daresay,” Mr. Hayes
suggested.

“No, sir. I'm bound for San Francisco, to get a job in steam and work up
to a captaincy.”

“Wherein you show commendable wisdom, Mr. Peasley,” the broker answered.
“A man can get so far in a windjammer--a hundred a month in the little
coasting schooners and a hundred and twenty-five in the big vessels
running foreign--and there he sticks. In steam schooners a good man can
command two hundred dollars a month, with a chance for promotion into a
big freighter, for the reason that in steam one has more opportunity to
show the stuff that's in one.”

“How far are you going?” Matt demanded.

“I'm bound for San Francisco too.”

“Good!” Matt replied, for, like most boys, he was a gregarious animal,
and Mr. Hayes seemed to be a pleasant, affable gentleman. “I suppose you
know most of the steam vessels on this coast?” he continued, anxious
to turn the conversation into channels that might be productive of
information valuable to him in his new line of endeavor.

Mr. Hayes nodded. “I have to,” he said, “if I'm to do any business
negotiating charters; in fact, I'm bound to San Francisco now to charter
two steamers.”

“Freight or passenger?”

“Freight. There's nothing for a broker in a passenger vessel. I'm
scouting for two boats for the Mannheim people. You've heard of them, of
course. They own tremendous copper mines in Alaska, but they can't seem
to get the right kind of flux to smelt their ore up there; so they're
going to freight it down to their smelter in Tacoma.”

“I see. But how do you work the game to pay your office rent?”

“Why, that's very simple, Mr. Peasley. Their traffic manager merely
calls me up and tells me to find two ore freighters for him. He doesn't
know where to look for them, but he knows I do, and that it will not
cost him anything to engage me to find them for him. Well, I locate the
vessels and when I come to terms with the owners, and those terms are
satisfactory to my clients, I close the charter and the vessel owners
pay me a commission of two and a half per cent. on all the freight money
earned under the charter. A shipowner generally is glad to pay a broker
a commission for digging him up business for his ships--particularly
when freights are dull.”

Matt Peasley nodded his comprehension and did some quick mental
arithmetic.

“Why, you'll make a nice little fee on those ore boats,” he said. “I
suppose it's a time charter.”

“Four years,” Mr. Hayes replied, and smiled fatly at the thought of his
income. “Of course I'd make a larger commission if the freight rate was
figured on a tonnage basis; but on long charters, like these I mention,
the ships are rented at a flat rate a day or month. Say, for instance,
I negotiate these charters at the rate of four hundred dollars a day, or
eight hundred dollars a day for the two boats. Two and a half per cent.
of eight hundred dollars is twenty dollars a day, which I will earn as
commission every day for the next four years that the vessels are not in
dry dock or laid up for repairs.”

“And you probably will earn that by one day of labor,” Matt Peasley
murmured admiringly--“perhaps one hour of actual labor!”

Mr. Hayes smiled again his fat smile. He shrugged.

“That's business,” he said carelessly. “An ounce of promotion is worth a
ton of horse power.”

“Well, I should say so, Mr. Hayes! But you'll have quite a search to
find an ore boat on the Pacific Coast. There are some coal boats running
to Coos Bay, but they're hardly big enough; and then I suppose they're
kept pretty busy in the coal trade, aren't they? It seems to me that
what you need for your business would be two of those big steel ore
vessels, with their engines astern--the kind they use on the Great
Lakes.”

“That is exactly why I am going to San Francisco, Mr. Peasley. There are
on this Coast two ships such as you describe--sister ships and just what
the doctor ordered.”

“What are their names?”

“The Lion and the Unicorn.”

Matt Peasley paused, with a forkful of provender halfway to his mouth.
The S.S. Lion, eh? Why, that was one of Cappy Ricks' vessels! He
remembered passing her off Cape Flattery once and seeing the Blue Star
house flag fluttering at the fore.

“Were they Lake boats originally?” he queried.

Mr. Hayes nodded.

“What are they doing out here?”

“Right after the San Francisco fire, when fir lumber jumped from a
twelve-dollar base to twenty-five, lumber freights soared accordingly,”
 Hayes explained. “Vessels that had been making a little money at
four dollars a thousand feet, from Oregon and Washington ports to San
Francisco, were enabled to get ten dollars; and anything that would
float was hauled out of the bone yard and put to work. Old Man Ricks, of
the Blue Star Navigation Company, was the first to see the handwriting
on the wall; so he sneaked East and bought the Lion and the Unicorn.
It was just the old cuss's luck to have a lot of cash on hand; and he
bought them cheap, loaded them with general cargo in New York, and paid
a nice dividend on them on their very first voyage under the Blue Star
flag. When he got them on the Coast he put them into the lumber trade
and they paid for themselves within a year.

“Then, just before the panic of 1907, old Ricks unloaded the Unicorn on
the Black Butte Company for ten thousand dollars more than he paid
for her--the old scamp! He's the shrewdest trader on the whole Pacific
Coast. He had no sooner sawed the Unicorn off on the Black Butte people
than the freight market collapsed in the general crash, and ever since
then the owners of the Lion and the Unicorn have been stuck with their
vessels. They're so big it's next to impossible to keep them running
coastwise in the lumber trade during a dull period, and they're not
big enough for the foreign trade. About the only thing they could do
profitably was to freight coal, coal freights have dropped until the
margin of profit is very meager; competition is keen and for the last
six months the Lion and the Unicorn have been laid up.”

Matt Peasley smiled.

“They'll be hungry for the business,” he said, “and I'm sailor enough to
see you'll be able to drive a bargain without much trouble.”

“I ought to get them pretty cheap,” Mr. Hayes admitted. “As you perhaps
know, a vessel deteriorates faster when laid up than she does in active
service; and an owner will do almost anything to keep her at sea,
provided he can make a modest rate of interest on her cost price or
present market value.”

“Naturally,” Matt Peasley observed as they rose from the table.

He purchased a cigar for Mr. Hayes, and as they retired to the buffet
car to continue their acquaintance something whispered to Matt not to
divulge to this somewhat garrulous stranger the news that he was a sea
captain lately in the employ of the Blue Star Navigation Company and
soon to enter that employ again. He had learned enough to realize that
Cappy's bank roll was threatened by this man from Seattle; that with
his defenses leveled, as it were, the old gentleman would prove an easy
victim unless warned of the impending attack.

Therefore, since Matt had not sought Mr. Hayes' confidence nor accepted
it under a pledge of secrecy, he decided that there could be nothing
unethical in taking advantage of it. Plainly the broker had jumped to
the conclusion that Matt was a common sailor--above the average in point
of intelligence, but so young and unsophisticated that one need
not bother to be reserved or cautious in his presence. Some vague
understanding of this had come to Matt Peasley; hence throughout the
remainder of the journey his conversations with the broker bore on every
other subject under heaven except ships and shipowners.



CHAPTER XXII. FACE TO FACE


In his private office Cappy Ricks sat on his spine, with his old legs on
his desk and his head sunk forward on his breast. His eyes were closed;
to the casual observer he would have appeared to be dozing. Any one of
his employees, however, would have known Cappy was merely thinking. It
was his habit to close his eyes and sit very still whenever he faced a
tussle with a tough proposition.

Presently an unmistakably feminine kiss, surreptitiously delivered,
roused Cappy from his meditations. He opened his eyes and beheld his
daughter Florence, a radiant debutante of twenty, and the sole prop of
her eccentric parent's declining years.

“Daddy dear,” she announced, “there's something wrong with my bank
account. I've just come from the Marine National Bank and they wouldn't
cash my check.”

“Of course not,” Cappy replied, beaming affectionately. “They telephoned
about five minutes ago that you're into the red again; so I've
instructed Skinner to deposit five thousand to your credit.”

“Oh, but I want ten thousand!” she protested.

“Can't have it, Florry!” he declared. “The old limousine will have to
do. Go slow, my dear--go slow! Why, they're offering random cargoes
freely along the street for nine dollars. Logs cost six dollars, with a
dollar and a half to manufacture--that's seven and a half; and three and
a half water freight added--that's eleven dollars. Eleven-dollar lumber
selling for nine dollars, and no business at that! I haven't had a
vessel dividend in six months--”

Mr. Skinner entered.

“Mr. Ricks,” he announced, “Captain Peasley, late of the Retriever, is
in the outer office. Shall I tell him to wait?”

“No. Haven't we been itching to see each other the past eighteen months?
Show him in immediately, Skinner.” Cappy turned to his daughter. “I want
to show you something my dear,” he said; “something you're not likely
to meet very often in your set--and that's a he-man. Do you remember
hearing me tell the story of the mate that thrashed the big Swede
skipper I sent to Cape Town to thrash him and bring the vessel home?”

“Do you mean the captain that never writes letters?”

“That's the man. The fellow I've been having so much fun with--the Nervy
Matt that tried to hornswoggle me with my own photograph. Passed it
off as his own, Florry! He hails from my old home town, and he's a mere
boy--Come in!”

The door opened to admit Matt Peasley; and as he paused just inside
the entrance, slightly embarrassed at finding himself under the cool
scrutiny of the trimmest, most dashing little craft he had ever seen,
Miss Florry decided that her father was right. Here, indeed, was a
specimen of the genus Homo she had not hitherto seen. Six feet three he
was, straight from shoulder to hip, broad-chested and singularly well
formed and graceful for such a big man.

He wore stout shoes, without toe caps--rather old-fashioned footgear,
Florry thought; but they were polished brightly. A tailor-made,
double-breasted blue serge suit, close-hauled and demoded; a soft white
silk shirt, with non-detachable collar; a plain black silk four-in-hand
tie, and a uniform cap, set a little back and to one side on thick,
black, glossy, wavy hair, completed his attire. He had his right hand in
his trousers pocket; his left was on the doorknob. He glanced from her
to her father.

“He's handsome,” thought Florry. “What a beautiful tan on his throat! He
looks anything but the brute he is. But he hasn't any manners. Oh, dear!
He stands there like a graven image.”

Matt Peasley's hand came out of his pocket; off came his cap and he
bowed slightly.

“I am Captain Peasley,” he said.

Cappy Ricks, leaning forward on the edge of his swivel chair, with head
slightly bent, made a long appraisal of the young man over the rims of
his spectacles.

“Ahem!” he said. “Huh! Harumph!” Ensued another terrible silence. Then:
“Young scoundrel!” Cappy cried. “Infernal young scoundrel!”

“I accept the nomination,” said Matt dryly. “You'd never know me from
my photograph, would you, sir? I'd know you from yours, though--in a
minute!”

Miss Florry tittered audibly, thus drawing on herself the attention of
the skipper, who was audacious enough to favor her with a solemn wink.

“None of your jokes with me, sir!” said Cappy severely.

“That's just what I say, sir; none of your jokes on me! Those green
hides were absolutely indecent.”

“Matt, you're a fresh young fellow,” Cappy charged, struggling to
suppress a smile.

“And I was raised on salt water too,” Matt added seriously.

Cappy laughed.

“You're a Thomaston Peasley,” he declared, and shook hands. “Ever hear
of Ethan Peasley back there?”

“He was my uncle, sir. He was drowned at sea.”

“He was a boyhood chum of mine, Matt. Permit me to present my daughter,
Miss Florence.”

Miss Florence favored the captain with her most bewitching smile and
nodded perkily. Matt held out his great hand, not realizing that a
bow and a conventional “Delighted, I'm sure!” was the correct thing
in Florry's set. Florry was about to accept his great paw when Cappy
yelled:

“Don't take it, Florry! He'll squeeze your hand to jelly.”

“I won't,” Matt declared, embarrassed. “I might press it a little--”

“I know. You pressed mine a little, and if I live to be a thousand years
old I'll never shake hands with you again.”

“I'll give her my finger then,” Matt declared, and forthwith held out
his index finger, which Florry shook gravely.

“Well, well, boy; sit down, sit down,” Cappy commanded briskly, “while
I tell you the plans I have for your future. I ought to have fired you
long ago--”

“I shall always be happy to testify that you tried hard enough,” Matt
interrupted, and Florry's silvery laugh filled the room. Cappy winced,
but had to join with her in the laugh on himself.

“For the sake of your Uncle Ethan, and the fact that you're one of our
own boys, Matt,” he continued, “I'll retain you if you behave yourself.
As I believe I wired you, I'm going to put you in steam.”

“You didn't consult me about it, sir; but, to please you, I'll tackle
steam. I'm very grateful for your interest in me, Mr. Ricks.”

“Huh! That's not true, Matt. You're not grateful; and if you are you
have no business to be. I paid you a hundred and twenty-five dollars a
month to skipper the Retriever; you earned every cent of it and I made
you fight for the job; so, no thanks to me. And I know for a fact that
you and Mr. Murphy cursed me up hill and down dale--”

“Oh, Captain Peasley!” Miss Ricks interrupted. “Did you curse my
father?”

“She's trying to fluster me,” Matt thought. “She thinks I'm a farmer.”
 Aloud he said: “Well, you see, Miss Ricks, I had to work for him.
However, Mr. Murphy and I have forgiven him. We're both willing to let
bygones be bygones.”

“Young scoundrel!” piped Cappy, delighted beyond measure, for he was
used to unimaginative, rather dull skippers, who revered their berths
and stood before him, hat in hand, plainly uncomfortable in the presence
of the creator of the payroll. “Dashed young scoundrel! Well, we had
some fun anyhow, didn't we, Matt? And, as the young fellows say, I got
your Capricorn. Very well, then. We'll make a new start, Matthew; and
if you pay attention to business it's barely possible you may amount to
something yet.

“I'm going to provide a berth for you, my boy, as second mate on the
dirtiest, leakiest little bumboat you ever saw--our steam schooner
Gualala. She's a nautical disgrace and carries three hundred thousand
feet of lumber--runs into the dogholes on the Mendocino Coast and takes
in cargo on a trolley running from the top of the cliff to the masthead.
It'll be your job to get out in a small boat to pick up the moorings;
and that'll be no picnic in the wintertime, because you lie just outside
the edge of the breakers. But you'll learn how to pick up moorings,
Matt, and you'll learn how to turn a steamer round on her heels also.”

“I never did that kind of work before,” Matt protested. “I stand a good
chance of getting drowned, don't I?”

“Of course! But better men than you do it; so don't kick. In the spring
I'll shift you to a larger boat; but I want you to have one winter along
the Mendocino Coast. It'll about break your heart, but it will do you
an awful lot of good, Matt. When you finish in the Gualala, you'll go
in the Florence Ricks and run from Grays Harbor to San Pedro. Then, when
you get your first mate's license, I'll put you in our Tillicum, where
you'll learn how to handle a big vessel; and by the time you get your
master's license for steam you'll be ready to start for Philadelphia
to bring

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