Captain Scraggs Part 5

As the _Maggie_ chugged blithely away, the navigating officer's soul expanded in song, and in the voice of a bull walrus he delivered himself of a deep sea chantey more popular than proper.

Presently, away off in the fog, he heard the _Bodega_ whistle.

The _Aphrodite_ answered immediately. Adelbert P. Gibney smiled and bit a large crescent out of his navy plug, for his soul was at peace. When The Squarehead came into the pilot house presently and grinned at him, Mr. Gibney handed Neils an electric torch.

"Prowl around below in the old ruin, Neils," he commanded, "and see if we're makin' any water."

A quarter of an hour later Neils Halvorsen returned to report the _Maggie_ apparently undamaged, so Mr. Gibney changed his course and headed stealthily in the direction of the whistling tugs. He came up behind them presently--approaching so close under cover of the fog that he could hear Dan Hicks and Jack Flaherty, both under a dead-slow bell, felicitating each other through their megaphones.

"Where d'ye suppose that dirty scoundrel's gone?" Hicks was demanding.

"Out to sea, of course," Flaherty bellowed. "He'll stand off until the fog lifts and then come ramping in as proud as Lucifer and look amazed when we send him in a bill."

"Bill!" Hicks' voice dripped with sarcasm. "The Red Stack Company will libel him, and if the old man doesn't, me an' my crew will."

"I'll bet a ripe peach he's a j.a.p, with a scoundrelly white skipper and white mates. They'll all stick together for a five-dollar bill and swear they never was on the beach at all. If they do, how're we goin' to prove it?"

"That's logic," the eavesdropping Gibney murmured to the binnacle.

"Oh, h.e.l.l's bells, shut up and let's go home," Dan Hicks cried wearily. "We can catch him when he comes in."

"Suppose he doesn't come in. Suppose he's bound for Seattle, Dan."

"We can libel him wherever he goes."

"I'll bet he gave us a fict.i.tious name, Dan!"

"Stow that grief, Jack. Stow it, or I'll go mad. The _Bodega_ has more speed than the _Aphrodite_, so poke ahead there and let's try to get in an hour's sleep before daylight. If you can't feel your way in I can."

"I'll just tag along silent and lazy-like after you two misfortunates," Mr. Gibney decided, "an' you'll do my whistlin'

for me." He called Scraggs on the howler and explained the situation. "Regular Cook's tour," he exulted. "Personally conducted. Off again, on again, away again, Finnegan--and not a nickel's worth of loss unless you count them vegetables you hove at McGuffey. Ain't you proud o' your navigatin' officer, Scraggsy, old tarpot?"

"I am, Gib, but I'll be prouder'n ever if you can follow them towboats in without havin' to claw off Baker's beach or the Point Bonita rocks."

"Calamity howler," Gibney growled. Half an hour later he caught the echo of the _Bodega's_ whistle as the sound was hurled back from the high cliffs at Land's End, off to starboard. A minute later he heard the hoa.r.s.e growl of the siren from the fog station on Point Bonita, on the port beam. He knew where he was now with as much certainty as if he was navigating in broad daylight, so he loafed along a couple of hundred yards behind the _Bodega_, until the _Maggie_ ceased pitching--when he knew he was in the still water inside the entrance. So he sheered over to starboard, with Neils Halvorsen heaving the lead, and dropped anchor in five fathoms under the lee of Fort Mason. He was quite confident of his ability to sneak along the waterfront and creep into the _Maggie's_ berth at Jackson Street bulkhead, but having gone astray in his calculations once that night, a vagrant sense of consideration for Captain Scraggs decided him to take no more risks until the fog should lift. He could hear the _Bodega_ and the _Aphrodite_ tooting as they continued down the bay, so he knew they were headed for their berths at the foot of Broadway, fog or no fog.

When Captain Scraggs, having banked his fires, came up out of the engine room, Mr. Gibney laid a great paw paternally upon the skipper's shoulder. "Scraggsy, old salamander," he announced, "I think I've done enough to-night to ent.i.tle me to some sleep until this tule fog lifts. Am I right?"

"You certainly are, Gib, my dear boy."

"Very well, then. I'll turn in. As for you, old sailor, your night's work is not ended. Have The Squarehead row you ash.o.r.e in the skiff; I'll stay up an' work the patent foghorn so he can find his way back to the _Maggie_, while you hike down town----"

"What for?" Scraggs demanded irritably. "I'm all wore out."

"This adventure ain't ended," Mr. Gibney warned him. "There's a witness to our perfidy still at large. His name is B. McGuffey, esquire, an' I'll lay you ten to one you'll find him asleep in Scab Johnny's boardin' house. Go to him, Scraggsy, an' bring a pint flask with you when you do; wake him up, beg his pardon, take him to breakfast, and promise him you'll do somethin' for his boilers. Old Mac's got a heart as tender as a infant's. You can win him over."

"Oh, Gib, use some common sense. Mac'll lay abed until noon. It stands to reason he'll have to, because he didn't take no change of clothin' with him, so he'll just naturally have to wait till his wet clothes get dry before venturin' forth an' spreadin' the news that the _Maggie's_ on the beach. He doesn't know we're off, an' once we're tied up at the dock and we hear Mac's been talkin'

we'll just spread the word that he was so soused he jumped overboard an' swum ash.o.r.e without waitin' to see if we could back off. Lordy, Gib, don't work me to death. I'm that weary I could flop on this wet deck an' be off to sleep in a pig's whisper."

"I dunno but what there's reason in what you say," Mr. Gibney agreed. "Well, turn in, Scraggsy, but the minute we hit the dock you run up town and fix things up with Bart."

And without further ado he set the alarm clock for seven o'clock, kicked off his shoes, and climbed into his berth with his clothes on.

CHAPTER VIII

The crews of the _Aphrodite_ and the _Bodega_ slept late also, for they were weary, and fortunately, no calls for a tug came into the office of the Red Stack Company all morning. About ten o'clock Dan Hicks and Jack Flaherty breakfasted and about ten thirty both met in the office. Apparently they were two souls with but a single thought, for the right hand of each sought the shelf whereon reposed the blue volume ent.i.tled "Lloyd's Register." Dan Hicks reached it first, carried it to the counter, wet his tarry index finger, and started turning the pages in a vain search for the American steamer _Yankee Prince_. Presently he looked up at Jack Flaherty.

"Flaherty," he said, "I think you're a liar."

"The same to you and many of them," Flaherty replied, not a whit abashed. "You said she was an eight thousand ton tramp."

"I never went so far as to say I'd been aboard her on trial trip, though--and I did cut down her tonnage, showin' I got the fragments of a conscience left," Hicks defended himself.

He closed the book with a sigh and placed it back on the shelf, just as the door opened to admit no less a personage than Batholomew McGuffey, late chief engineer, first a.s.sistant, second a.s.sistant, third a.s.sistant, wiper, oiler, water-tender, and stoker of the S.S. _Maggie_. With a brief nod to Jack Flaherty Mr. McGuffey approached Dan Hicks.

"I been lookin' for you, captain," he announced. "Say, I hear the chief o' the _Aphrodite's_ goin' to take a three months' lay-off to get shet of his rheumatism. Is that straight?"

"I believe it is, McGuffey."

"Well, say, I'd like to have a chance to subst.i.toot for him. You know my capabilities, Hicks, an' if it would be agreeable to you to have me for your chief your recommendation would go a long way toward landin' me the job. I'd sure make them engines behave."

"What vessel have you been on lately?" Hicks demanded cautiously, for he knew Mr. McGuffey's reputation for non-reliability around pay-day.

"I been with that fresh water scavenger, Scraggs, in the _Maggie_ for most a year."

"Did you quit or did Scraggs fire you?"

"He fired me," McGuffey replied honestly. "If he hadn't I'd have quit, so it's a toss-up. Comin' in from Halfmoon Bay last night we got lost in the fog an' piled up on the beach just below the Cliff House----"

"This is interesting," Jack Flaherty murmured. "You say she walked ash.o.r.e on you, McGuffey? Well, I'll be shot!"

"She did. Scraggs blamed it on me, Flaherty. He said I didn't obey the signals from the bridge, one word led to another, an' he went dancin' mad an' ordered me off his ship. Well, it's his ship--or it _was_ his ship, for I'll bet a dollar she's ground to powder by now--so all I could do was obey. I hopped overboard an' waded ash.o.r.e. I suppose all my clothes an' things is gone by now. I left everything aboard an' had to borrow this outfit from Scab Johnny." He grinned pathetically. "So I guess you understand, Captain Hicks, just how bad I need that job I spoke about a minute ago."

"I'll think it over, Mac, an' let you know," Hicks replied evasively.

Mr. McGuffey, sensing his defeat, retired forthwith to hide his embarra.s.sment and distress; as the door closed behind him, Hicks and Flaherty faced each other.

"Jack," quoth Dan Hicks, "can two towboat men, holdin' down two hundred-dollar jobs an' presumed to have been out o' their swaddlin' clothes for at least thirty years, afford to be laughed off the San Francisco waterfront?"

"I know one of them that can't, Dan. At the same time, can a rat like Phineas P. Scraggs and a beachcomber like his mate Gibney make a pair of star-spangled monkeys out of said two towboat men and get away with it?"

"They did that last night. Still, I've known monkeys that would fight an' was human enough to settle a grudge. Follow me, Jack."

Together they repaired to Jackson Street bulkhead. Sure enough there lay the _Maggie_, rubbing her blistered sides against the bulkhead. Captain Scraggs was nowhere in sight, but Mr. Gibney was at the winch, swinging ash.o.r.e the crates of vegetables which The Squarehead and three longsh.o.r.emen loaded into the cargo net.