Captain Scraggs | Page 8

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----"
"It'll hold," Gibney retorted doggedly. "It's a tule fog. They always hold. Quit huggin' me. Your breath's bad. Them eggs, I guess."
Captain Scraggs, hurled forcibly backward, bumped into the pilot house, but lost none of his enthusiasm. "You're a jewel," he declared. "Oh, man, what a head! Whatever made you think of the Yankee Prince?"
"Because," Mr. Gibney answered calmly, "there ain't no such ship, this land of ours bein' a free republic where princes don't grow. Still, it's a nice name, Scraggs, old tarpot--more particular since I thought it up in a hurry. Eh, what?"
"Halvorsen," cried Captain Scraggs.
The lone deckhand emerged from a hole in the freight forward whither he had retreated to escape the vegetable barrage put over by Captain Scraggs when McGuffey left the ship. "Aye, aye, sir," he boomed.
"All hands below to the galley!" Scraggs shouted. "While we're waitin'