Captain Scraggs Part 10

"Neils an' my mate."

"If that new mate dares to leave you in command o' the _Maggie_, alone an' unprotected on the high seas an' you with a fresh water license, I'll----"

"Then Neils an' I'll do it."

"You don't know how. Besides, you're afraid to go aboard that bark. You don't know what kind of a frightful disease she may have aboard. Do you know a plague s.h.i.+p when you see one?"

Captain Scraggs paled a little, but the prospect of the salvage heartened him. "I don't give a hoot," he declared. "I'll take a chance."

"All right. Consider it taken. How're you goin' to get aboard her?"

"In the skiff."

"Where's the skiff?"

Captain Scraggs glanced around wildly, and when McGuffey jeered him, he cast his hat upon the deck and started to leap upon it.

The devilish Gibney was right. It appeared that owing to a glut of freight on the landing, Captain Scraggs had decided, in view of the fine weather prevailing, to take an unusually large cargo that trip. With this idea in mind, he had piled freight over every available inch of deck s.p.a.ce until the cargo was flush with the top of the house. On top of the house, the skiff always rested, bottom up. Captain Scraggs had righted the skiff, piled it full of loose artichokes from half a dozen crates broken in the cargo net while loading, and then proceeded to pile more vegetables on top of it and around it until the _Maggie's_ funnel barely showed through the piled-up freight, and the little vessel was so top heavy she was cranky. In order to get at the small boat, therefore, it would be necessary to s.h.i.+ft this load off the house, and the question that now confronted Scraggs and his crew was to find a spot that would accommodate the part of the deckload thus s.h.i.+fted!

When Captain Scraggs had completed his hornpipe on his hat he threw an appealing glance at his new mate. "We'll jettison what freight proves an embarra.s.sment," this astute individual advised.

"The farmers that own it will soak you a couple o' hundred dollars for the loss, but what's that with thousands in sight waitin' to be picked up?"

"Hear that, Gib? Hear that, you swab?"

"I heard it. Did you hear that?"

"What?"

"A nice, brisk little nor'west trade wind that's only blowin'

about thirty mile an hour. The _Maggie_ ain't got power enough to tow the bark agin that wind. You'll haul her ahead two feet an', in spite o' you, she'll slip back twenty-five inches."

"That trade wind dies down after sunset," the devilish new mate informed him.

"Quite true. But in the meantime you're burning coal loafin'

around here, an' before you get the bark inside you'll be plumb out o' coal," Mr. McGuffey reminded them. "I know this old coffin like I know the back o' my own hand. Why, she lives on coal!

Oh-h-h, Scraggsy, Scraggsy, poor old Scraggsy," he keened in a high falsetto voice and subsided on a crate of celery, the while he waved his legs in the air and affected to be overcome by his merriment. Scraggs turned the colour of a ripe old Edam cheese, while Mr. Gibney folded his hands and looked idiotic.

"Old Phineas P. Scraggs, the salvage expert!" McGuffey's falsetto would have maddened a sheep. "He cast his bread upon the waters and lo, it returned to him after many days--and made him sick.

O-h-h-h-h, Scraggsy--poor old Scraggsy! If he went divin' for pearls in three feet o' water he'd bring up a clam sh.e.l.l. Oh, dear, I'm goin' to die o' this, Gib."

"Don't, Bart. I'm goin' to have need o' your well-known ability to help salvage this bark. Scraggs, you old sinner, has it dawned on you that what this proposition needs to get it over is a dash o' the Adelbert P. Gibney brand of imagination?"

The new navigating officer drew Captain Scraggs aside and whispered in his ear: "Make it up with these Smart Alecks, Scraggs. They got it on us, but if we can send you an' Halvorsen, McGuffey and Gibney over to the bark, you can get some sail on her an' what with the wind helpin' us along, the _Maggie_ can tow her all right."

Mr. Gibney saw by the hopeful, even cunning, look that leaped to Scraggs's eyes that the problem was about to be solved without recourse to the Gibney imagination, so he resolved to be alert and not permit himself to be caught out on the end of a limb.

"Well, Scraggsy?" he demanded.

"I guess I need you in my business, Gib. You're right an' I'm always wrong. It's a fact. I _ain't_ got no more imagination than a chicken. Hence, havin' no imagination o' my own I ask you, as man to man an' appealin' to your generous instincts as an old friend an' former valued employee, to let bygones be bygones an'

haul us out o' the hole that threatens to make us the laughin'

stock o' the whole Pacific coast."

"Spoken like a man--I do not think. Scraggs, for once in my life I have you where the hair is short. You find yourself up agin a proposition that requires brains, you ain't got 'em yourself an'

at last you're forced to admit that Adelbert P. Gibney is the man that peddles 'em. Now, you been doin' a lot o' hollerin' about me an' Bart bein' pirates under the law an' liable to hangin' an'

imprisonment, an' that kind o' guff don't go nohow. We're willin'

to admit that mebbe we've been a little mite familiar an'

forward, bankin' on the natural leanin' of friend for friend that you take it all for the joke it's intended to be, but when you go to carryin' the joke too far, we got to protect ourselves.

Scraggsy, I'm willin' to dig in an' help out in a pinch, but it's gettin' so me an' Mac can't trust you no more. We're that leery of you we won't take your word for nothin', since you fooled him on the new boiler an' me on the paint; consequently, we're off you an' this salvage job unless you give us a clearance, in writin', statin' that we are not an' never was pirates, that we're good, law-abiding citizens an' aboard the _Maggie_ as your guests, takin' the trip at our own risk. When you sign such a paper, with your crew for witnesses, I'll demonstrate how that bark can be salvaged without makin' you remove so much as a head o' cabbage to get at your small boat. My imagination's better'n my reputation, Scraggsy, an' I ain't workin' it for nothin!"

"Gib, my _dear_ boy. You're the most sensitive man I ever sailed with. Can't you take a little joke?"

"Sure, I can take a little joke. It's the big ones that stick in my craw an' stifle my friends.h.i.+p. Gimme a fountain pen an' a leaf out o' the log book an' I'll draw up the affydavit for your signature."

Scraggs complied precipitately with this request; whereupon Mr.

Gibney spread his great bulk over the chart case and with many a twist and flip of his tongue on the up and down strokes, produced this remarkable doc.u.ment:

At Sea, Off Point Montara, aboard S.S. _Maggie_, of San Francisco.

June 4, 19--.

This is to sertify that A.P. Gibney, Esq., and Bart McGuffey, Esq. is law-abidin' sitisens of the U.S.A. and the const.i.tootion thereof, and in no way pirates or such; and be it further resolved that the said parties hereto are aboard said American steamer _Maggie_ this date on the special invite of Phineas P. Scraggs, owner, as his guests and at their own risk.

Witness my hand and seal:

Captain Scraggs signed without reading and the new mate and Neils Halvorsen appended their signatures as witnesses. Mr. Gibney thereupon folded this clearance paper into the tiniest possible compact ball, wrapped it in a piece of tinfoil torn from a package of tobacco, to protect it from his saliva, tucked it in his cheek and with a sign for McGuffey to follow him, started crawling over the cargo aft. By this time, the _Maggie_ was within a hundred yards of the distressed bark and was ratching slowly backward and forward before her.

"In all my born days," quoth Mr. Gibney, speaking a trifle thickly because of the doc.u.ment in his mouth, "I never got such a wallop as Scraggs handed me an' you last night. I don't forget things like that in a hurry. Now that we got a vindication o' the charge o' piracy agin us, I'm achin' to get shet of the _Maggie_ an' her crew, so if you'll kindly peel off all of your clothes with the exception, say, of your underdrawers, we'll swim off to that bark an' give Phineas P. Scraggs an exhibition of real sailorizin' an' seamans.h.i.+p."

"What's the big idee?" McGuffey demanded cautiously.

"Why, we'll sail her in ourselves--me an' you--an' glom all the salvage for ourselves. T'ell with Scraggs an' the _Maggie_ an'

that new mate an' engineer. I'm off'n 'em for life."

Pop-eyed with excitement and interest, B. McGuffey, Esquire, stood up and with a single twist shed his cap and coat. His s.h.i.+rts followed. Both he and Gibney were already minus their shoes and socks. To slip out of their faded dungarees was the work of an instant. Strapping their belts around their waists to hold up their drawers, the worthy pair stepped to the rail of the _Maggie_.

"Hey, there? Where you goin', Gib? I give you that clearance paper on condition that you was to tell me how to salvage that there bark without havin' to s.h.i.+ft my cargo to get at the small boat."

"I'm just about to tell you, Scraggs. You don't touch a thing aboard the _Maggie_. You leave her out of it entirely. You just jump overboard, like me an' Mac will in a jiffy, swim over to the bark, climb aboard, and sail her in to San Francis...o...b..y. When you get there you drop anchor an' call it a day's work." He grinned broadly. "One o' these bright days, Scraggs, when me an'

Mac is just wallerin' in salvage money, drop around to see us an'

we'll give you a kick in the face. Farewell, you b.o.o.bs," and he dove overboard.

"Ta-ta," McGuffey cried in his tantalizing falsetto voice, and followed his leader into the briny deep. As they came up and snorted, grampus-like, shaking the water out of their eyes, they glanced back at the _Maggie_ and observed that Captain Scraggs was, for the third time that never-to-be-forgotten voyage, jumping on his hat.

"If I was that far gone in a habit," quoth Mr. McGuffey as he hauled up alongside Mr. Gibney, "I'll be switched if I wouldn't go bareheaded an' save expenses."

CHAPTER XII