Captain Scraggs Part 3

"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!"

"G.o.d 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, b.u.mped 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+p. "Aye, aye, sir,"

he boomed.

"All hands below to the galley!" Scraggs shouted. "While we're waitin' for this here towboat I'll brew a scuttle o' grog to celebrate the discovery o' real seafarin' talent. Gib, my _dear_ boy, I'm proud of you. No matter what happens, I'll never have no other navigatin' officer."

"Don't crow till you're out o' the woods," the astute Gibney warned him.

CHAPTER VI

In the office of the Red Stack Tug Boat Company, Captain Dan Hicks, master of the tug _Aphrodite_; Captain Jack Flaherty, master of the _Bodega_, and Tiernan, the a.s.sistant superintendent on night watch, sat around a hot little box stove engaged in that occupation so dear to the maritime heart, to-wit: spinning yarns.

Dan Hicks had the floor, and was relating a tale that had to do with his life as a freight and pa.s.senger skipper.

"We was makin' up to the dock when I see the general agent standin' in the door o' the dock office--an' all of a sudden I didn't feel so chipper about havin' crossed Humboldt bar in a sou'easter. I saw the old man runnin' his eye along forty foot o'

twisted pipe railin', a wrecked bridge, three bent stanchions an'

every door an' window on the starboard side o' the s.h.i.+p stove in, while the pa.s.sengers crowded the rail lookin' cold an' miserable, pea-green an' thankful. No need for me to do any explainin'. He knew. He throws his dead fish eye up to me on what's left o' the bridge an' I felt my job was vacant.

"'We was. .h.i.t by a sea or two on Humboldt bar, sir,' I says, as if gettin' hit by a sea or two an' havin' the s.h.i.+p gutted was an every-day experience."

"'Is that so, Hicks?' says he sweetly. 'Well, now, if you hadn't told me that I'd ha' jumped to the conclusion that a couple o'

the mess boys had got fightin' an' wrecked the s.h.i.+p before you could separate 'em. Why in this an' that,' he says, 'didn't you stick inside when any dumb fool could see the bar was breakin'?'

"'I wanted to keep the comp'ny's sailin' schedule unbroken, sir,'

I says, tryin' to be funny.

"'Well, Captain,' he says, 'it 'pears to me you've broken d.a.m.ned near everything else tryin' to do it.'

"I was certain he was goin' to set me down, but the worst I got was a three months' lay-off to teach me common sense----"

The telephone rang and Tiernan answered. Hicks and Flaherty hitched forward in their chairs to listen.

"h.e.l.lo.... Yes, Red Stack office.... Steamer _Yankee Prince_....

What's that?... silk and rice?... Half a mile below the Cliff House, eh?... Sure, I'll send a tug right away, Lindstrom."

Tiernan hung up and faced the two skippers. "Gentlemen," he announced, "here's a chance for a little salvage money to-night.

The American steamer _Yankee Prince_ is ash.o.r.e half a mile below the Cliff House. She's a big tramp with a valuable cargo from Hong Kong, with her rudder gone and her crank shaft busted."

"It's high water at twelve thirty-seven," Jack Flaherty pleaded.

"You'd better send me, Tiernan. The _Bodega_ has more power than the _Aphrodite_."

This was the truth and Dan Hicks knew it, but he was not to be beaten out of his share of the salvage by such flimsy argument.

"Jack," he pleaded, "don't be a hog all the time. The _Yankee Prince_ is an eight thousand ton vessel and it's a two-tug job.

Better send us both, Tiernan, and play safe. Chances are our compet.i.tors have three tugs on the way right now."

"What a wonderful imagination you have, Dan. Eight thousand tons!

You're crazy, man. She's thirteen hundred net register and I know it because I was in Newport News when they launched her, and I went out with her skipper on the trial trip. She's a long, narrow-gutted craft, with engines aft, like a lake steamer."

"We'll play safe," Tiernan decided. "Go to it--both of you, and may the best man win. She'll belong to you, Jack, if she's thirteen hundred net and you get your line aboard first. If she's as big as Dan says she is, you'll be equal partners----"

But he was talking to himself. Down the dock Hicks and Flaherty were racing for the respective commands, each shouting to his night watchman to pipe all hands on deck. Fortunately, a goodly head of steam was up in each tug's boilers; because of the fog and the liability to collisions and a consequent hasty summons, one engineer on each tug was on duty. Before Hicks and Flaherty were in their respective pilot houses the oil burners were roaring l.u.s.tily under their respective boilers; the lines were cast off within a minute of each other, and the two tugs raced down the bay through the darkness and fog.

Both Hicks and Flaherty had grown old in the towboat service and the rules of the road rested lightly on their sordid souls. They were going over a course they knew by heart--wherefore the fog had no terrors for them. Down the bay they raced, the _Bodega_ leading slightly, both tugs whistling at half-minute intervals.

Out through the Gate they nosed their way, heaving the lead continuously, made a wide detour around Mile Rock and the Seal Rocks, swung a mile to the south of the position of the _Maggie_, and then came cautiously up the coast, whistling continuously to acquaint the _Yankee Prince_ with their presence in the neighbourhood. In antic.i.p.ation of the necessity for replying to this welcome sound, Captain Scraggs and Mr. Gibney had, for the past two hours, busied themselves getting up another head of steam in the _Maggie's_ boilers, repairing the whistle, and splicing the wires of the engine room telegraph. Like the wise men they were, however, they declined to sound the _Maggie's_ siren until the tugs were quite close. Even then, Mr. Gibney shuddered, but needs must when the devil drives, so he pulled the whistle cord and was rewarded with a weird, mournful grunt, dying away into a gasp.

"Sounds like she has the pip," Jack Flaherty remarked to his mate.

"Must have taken on some of that dirty Asiatic water," Dan Hicks soliloquized, "and now her tubes have gone to glory."

Immediately, both tugs kicked ahead under a dead slow bell, guided by a series of toots as brief as Mr. Gibney could make them, and presently both tug lookouts reported breakers dead ahead; whereupon Jack Flaherty got out his largest megaphone and bellowed: "_Yankee Prince_, ahoy!" in his most approved fas.h.i.+on.

Dan Hicks did likewise. This irritated the avaricious Flaherty, so he turned his megaphone in the direction of his rival and begged him, if he still retained any of the instincts of a seaman, to shut up; to which entreaty Dan Hicks replied with an acidulous query as to whether or not Jack Flaherty thought he owned the sea.

For half a minute this mild repartee continued, to be interrupted presently by a whoop from out of the fog. It was Mr. Gibney. He did not possess a megaphone so he had gone below and appropriated a section of stove-pipe from the galley range, formed a mouthpiece of cardboard and produced a makes.h.i.+ft that suited his purpose admirably.

"Cut out that bickerin' like a pair of old women an' 'tend to your business," he commanded. "Get busy there--both of you, and shoot a line aboard. There's work enough for two."

Dan Hicks sent a man forward to heave the lead under the nose of the _Aphrodite_, which was edging in gingerly toward the voice.

He had a searchlight but he did not attempt to use it, knowing full well that in such a fog it would be of no avail. Guided, therefore, by the bellowings of Mr. Gibney, reinforced by the shrill yips of Captain Scraggs, the tug crept in closer and closer, and when it seemed that they must be within a hundred feet of the surf, Dan Hicks trained his Lyle gun in the direction of Mr. Gibney's voice and shot a heaving line into the fog.

Almost simultaneous with the report of the gun came a shriek of pain from Captain Scraggs. Straight and true the wet, heavy knotted end of the heaving line came in over the _Maggie's_ quarter and struck him in the mouth. In the darkness he staggered back from the stinging blow, clutched wildly at the air, slipped and rolled over among the vegetables with the precious rope clasped to his breast.

"I got it," he sputtered, "I got it, Gib."

"Safe, O!" Mr. Gibney bawled. "Pay out your hawser."