Part 3 (1/2)
”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----”