Captain Scraggs | Page 6

Pedro," Mr. Gibney decided. He ground his cud and
muttered ugly things to himself, for his dead reckoning had gone astray
and he was worried. The fog, if anything, was thicker than ever. He
could not even make out the phosphorescent water that curled out from
the Maggie's forefoot.
Time passed. Suddenly Mr. Gibney thrilled electrically to a shrill yip
from Captain Scraggs.
"What's that?" Mr. Gibney bawled.

"I dunno. Sounds like the surf, Gib."
"Ain't you been on this run long enough to know that the surf don't
sound like nothin' else in life but breakers?" Gibney retorted wrathfully.
"I ain't certain, Gib."
Instantly Gibney signalled McGuffey for half speed ahead.
"Breakers on the starboard bow," yelled Captain Scraggs.
"Port bow," The Squarehead corrected him.
"Oh, my great patience!" Mr. Gibney groaned. "They're on both bows
an' we're headed straight for the beach. Here's where we all go to hell
together," and he yanked wildly at the signal wire that led to the engine
room, with the intention of giving McGuffey four bells--the signal
aboard the Maggie for full speed astern. At the second jerk the wire
broke, but not until two bells had sounded in the engine room--the
signal for full speed ahead. The efficient McGuffey promptly kicked
her wide open, and the Fates decreed that, having done so, Mr.
McGuffey should forthwith climb the ladder and thrust his head out on
deck for a breath of fresh air. Instantly a chorus of shrieks up on the
fo'castle head attracted his attention to such a degree that he failed to
hear the engine room howler as Mr. Gibney blew frantically into it.
Presently, out of the hubbub forward, Mr. McGuffey heard Captain
Scraggs wail frantically: "Stop her! For the love of heaven, stop her!"
Instantly the engineer dropped back into the engine room and set the
Maggie full speed astern; then he grasped the howler and held it to his
ear.
"Stop her!" he heard Gibney shriek. "Why in blazes don't you stop
her?"
"She's set astern, Gib. She'll ease up in a minute."
"You know it," Gibney answered significantly.

The Maggie climbed lazily to the crest of a long oily roller, slid
recklessly down the other side, and took the following sea over her
taffrail. She still had some head on, but very little--not quite sufficient
to give her decent steerage way, as Mr. Gibney discovered when,
having at length communicated his desires to McGuffey, he spun the
wheel frantically in a belated effort to swing the Maggie's dirty nose
out to sea.
"Nothin' doin'," he snarled. "She'll have to come to a complete stop
before she begins to walk backward and get steerage way on again.
She'll bump as sure as death an' taxes."
She did--with a crack that shook the rigging and caused it to rattle like
buckshot in a pan. A terrible cry--such a cry, indeed, as might burst
from the lips of a mother seeing her only child run down by the
Limited--burst from poor Captain Scraggs. "My ship! my ship!" he
howled. "My darling little Maggie! They've killed you, they've killed
you! The dirty lubbers!"
The succeeding wave lifted the Maggie off the beach, carried her in
some fifty feet further, and deposited her gently on the sand. She heeled
over to port a little and rested there as if she was very, very weary, nor
could all the threshing of her screw in reverse haul her off again. The
surf, dashing in under her fantail, had more power than McGuffey's
engines, and, foot by foot, the Maggie proceeded to dig herself in. Mr.
Gibney listened for five minutes to the uproar that rose from the bowels
of the little steamer before he whistled up Mr. McGuffey.
"Kill her, kill her," he ordered. "Your wheel will bite into the sand first
thing you know, and tear the stern off her. You're shakin' the old girl to
pieces."
CHAPTER IV
McGuffey killed his engine, banked his fires, and came up on deck,
wiping his anxious face with a fearfully filthy sweat rag. At the same
time, Scraggs and Neils Halvorsen came crawling aft over the deckload
and when they reached the clear space around the pilot house, Captain

Scraggs threw his brown derby on the deck and leaped upon it until, his
rage abating ultimately, no power on earth, in the air, or under the sea,
could possibly have rehabilitated it and rendered it fit for further wear,
even by Captain Scraggs. This petulant practice of jumping on his hat
was a habit with Scraggs whenever anything annoyed him particularly
and was always infallible evidence that a simple declarative sentence
had stuck in his throat.
"Well, old whirling dervish," Mr. Gibney demanded calmly when
Scraggs paused for lack of breath to continue his dance, "what about