Captain Scraggs | Page 8

you off, so I guess I'll commence operations." Suiting the action
to the word, Mr. Gibney grasped the whistle cord and a strange, sad,
sneezing, wheezy moan resembling the expiring protest of a lusty pig
and gradually increasing into a long-drawn but respectable whistle
rewarded his efforts. For once, he could afford to be prodigal with the
steam, and while it lasted there could be no mistaking the fact that here
was a steamer in dire distress.
The weird call for help brought Scraggs around to a fuller realization of
the enormity of the disaster which had overtaken him. In his agony, he

forgot to curse his navigating officer for the latter's stubbornness in
refusing to turn back when the fog threatened. He clutched Mr. Gibney
by the right arm, thereby interrupting for an instant the dismal outburst
from the Maggie's siren.
"Gib," he moaned, "I'm a ruined man. How're we ever to get the old
sweetheart off whole? Answer me that, Gib. Answer me, I say. How're
we to get my Maggie off the beach?"
Mr. Gibney shook himself loose from that frantic grip and continued
his pull on the whistle until the Maggie, taking a false note, quavered,
moaned, spat steam a minute, and subsided with what might be termed
a nautical sob. "Now see what you've done," he bawled. "You've made
me bust the whistle."
"Answer my question, Gib."
"We'll never get her off if you don't quit interferin' an' give me time to
think. I'll admit there ain't much of a chance, because it's dead low
water now an' just as soon as the tide is at the flood she'll drive further
up the beach an' fall apart."
"Perhaps McGuffey will have heart enough to telephone into the city
for a tug."
"'Tain't scarcely probable, Scraggsy. You abused him vile an' threw a
lot of fodder at him."
"I wish I'd been took with paralysis first," Scraggs wailed bitterly.
"You'd best jump ashore, Gib, an' 'phone in. We're just below the Cliff
House and you can run up to one o' them beach resorts an' 'phone in to
the Red Stack Tug Boat Company."
"'Twouldn't be ethics for me, the registered master o' the Maggie, to
desert the ship, Scraggsy, old stick-in-the-mud. What's the matter with
gettin' your own shanks wet?"
"I dassen't, Gib. I've had a touch of chills an' fever ever since I used to

run mate up the San Joaquin sloughs. Here's a nickel to drop in the
telephone slot, Gib. There's a good fellow."
"Scraggsy, you're deludin' yourself. Show me a tugboat skipper that
would come out here on a night like this to pick up the S.S. Maggie,
two decks an' no bottom an' loaded with garden truck, an' I'll wag my
ears an' look at the back o' my neck. She ain't worth it."
"Ain't worth it! Why, man, I paid fifteen hundred hard cash dollars for
her."
"Fourteen hundred an' ninety-nine dollars an' ninety-nine cents too
much. They seen you comin'. However, grantin' for the sake of
argyment that she's worth the tow, the next question them towboat
skippers'll ask is: 'Who's goin' to pay the bill?' It'll be two hundred an'
fifty dollars at the lowest figger, an' if you got that much credit with the
towboat company you're some high financier. Ain't that logic?"
"I'm afraid," Scraggs replied sadly, "it is. Still, they'd have a lien on the
Maggie----"
"Steamer ahoy!" came a voice from the beach.
"Man with a megaphone," Mr. Gibney cried. "Ahoy! Ahoy, there!"
"Who are you an' what's the trouble?"
Captain Scraggs took it upon himself to answer: "American steamer
Mag----"
Mr. Gibney sprang upon him tigerishly, placed a horny,
tobacco-smelling palm across Scraggs's mouth and effectively
smothered all further sound. "American steamer Yankee Prince," he
bawled like a veritable Bull of Bashan, "of Boston, Hong Kong to
Frisco with a general cargo of sandal wood, rice, an' silk. Where're we
at?"
"Just outside the Gate. Half a mile south o' the Cliff House."

"Telephone in for a tug. We're in nice shape, restin' easy, but our
rudder's gone an' the after web o' the crank shaft's busted. Telephone in,
my man, an' I'll make it up to you when we get to a safe anchorage.
Who are you?"
"Lindstrom, of the Golden Gate Life Saving Station."
"I'll not forget you, Lindstrom. My owners are Yankees, but they're
sports."
"All right. I'll telephone. On my way!"
"God speed you," murmured Mr. Gibney, and released his hold on
Captain Scraggs, who instantly threw his arms around the navigating
officer's burly neck. "I forgive you, Adelbert," he crooned. "I forgive
you freely. By the tail of the Great Sacred Bull, you're a marvel. She's
an all-night fog or I'm a Chinaman, and if it only stays thick
enough----"