Part 23 (1/2)
”I'd have to spend about two thousand dollars on her to put her in condition for the voyage,” Scraggs replied.
”Can do,” Scab Johnny answered him briefly, and Senor Lopez nodded acquiescence. ”You discharge on a lighter at Descanso Bay about twenty miles below Ensenada. What'll it cost us?”
”Ten thousand dollars, in addition to fixin' up the _Maggie_.
Half down and half on delivery. I'm riskin' my hide an' my ticket an' I got to be well paid for it.”
Again Senor Lopez nodded. What did he care? It wasn't his money.
”I'll furnish you with our own crew just before you sail,” Scab Johnny continued. ”Get busy.”
”Gimme a thousand for preliminary expenses,” Scraggs demanded.
”After that Speed is my middle name.”
The charming Senor Lopez produced the money in crisp new bills and, perfect gentleman that he was, demanded no receipt. As a matter of fact, Scraggs would not have given him one.
The two weeks that followed were busy ones for Captain Scraggs.
The day after his interview with Scab Johnny and Don Manuel he engaged an engineer and a deck hand and went up the Sacramento to bring the _Maggie_ down to San Francisco. Upon her arrival she was hauled out on the marine ways at Oakland creek, cleaned, caulked, and some new copper sheathing put on her bottom. She was also given a dash of black paint, had her engines and boilers thoroughly overhauled and repaired, and s.h.i.+pped a new propeller that would add at least a knot to her speed. Also, she had her stern rebuilt. And when everything was ready, she slipped down to the Black Diamond coal bunkers and took on enough fuel to carry her to San Pedro; after which she steamed across the bay to San Francisco and tied up at Fremont Street wharf.
The cargo came down in boxes, variously labelled. There were ”agricultural implements,” a ”cream separator,” a ”windmill,” and half a dozen ”sewing-machines,” in addition to a considerable number of kegs alleged to contain nails. Most of it came down after five o'clock in the afternoon after the wharfinger had left the dock, and as nothing but a disordered brain would have suspected the steamer _Maggie_ of an attempt to break the neutrality laws, the entire cargo was gotten aboard safely and without a jot of suspicion attaching to the vessel.
When all was in readiness, Captain Scraggs incontinently ”fired” his deckhand and engineer and inducted aboard a new crew, carefully selected for their filibuster virtues by Scab Johnny himself. Then while the new engineer got up steam, Captain Scraggs went up to Scab Johnny's office for his final instructions and the balance of the first instalment due him.
Briefly, his instructions were as follows: Upon arrival off Point Dume on the southern California coast, he was to stand in close to Dume Cove under cover of darkness and show two green lights on the masthead. A man would come alongside presently in a small boat, and climb aboard. This man would be the supercargo and the confidential envoy of the insurrecto junta in Los Angeles.
Captain Scraggs was to look to this man for orders and to obey him implicitly, as upon this depended the success of the expedition. This agent of the insurrecto forces would pay him the balance of five thousand dollars due him immediately upon discharge of the cargo at Descanso Bay. There was a body of insurrecto troops encamped at Megano rancho, a mile from the beach, and they would have a barge and small boats in readiness to lighter the cargo. Scab Johnny explained that he had promised the crew double wages and a bonus of a hundred dollars each for the trip. Don Manuel Garcia Lopez paid over the requisite amount of cash, and half an hour later the _Maggie_ was steaming down the bay on her perilous mission.
The sun was setting as they pa.s.sed out the Golden Gate and swung down the south channel, and with the wind on her beam, the aged _Maggie_ did nine knots. Late in the afternoon of the following day she was off the Santa Barbara channel, and about midnight she ran in under the lee of Point Dume and lay to. The mate hung out the green signal lights, and in about an hour Captain Scraggs heard the sound of oars grating in rowlocks. A few minutes later a stentorian voice hailed them out of the darkness. Captain Scraggs had a Jacob's ladder slung over the side and the mate and two deckhands hung over the rail with lanterns, lighting up the surrounding sea feebly for the benefit of the lone adventurer who sat m.u.f.fled in a great coat in the stern of a small boat rowed by two men. There was a very slight sea running, and presently the men in the small boat, watching their opportunity by the ghostly light of the lanterns, ran their frail craft in under the lee of the _Maggie_. The figure in the stern sheets leaped on the instant, caught the Jacob's ladder, climbed nimbly over the side, and swore heartily in very good English as his feet struck the deck.
”What's the name of this floating coffin?” he demanded in a chain-locker voice. It was quite evident that even in the darkness, where her many defects were mercifully hidden, the _Maggie_ did not suit the special envoy of the Mexican insurrectos.
”American steamer _Maggie_,” said the skipper frigidly. ”Scraggs is my name, sir. And if you don't like my vessel----”
”Scraggsy!” roared the special envoy. ”Scraggsy, for a thousand!
And the old _Maggie_ of all boats! Scraggsy, old tarpot, your fin! Duke me, you doggoned old salamander!”
”Gib, my _dear_ boy!” shrieked Captain Scraggs and cast himself into Mr. Gibney's arms in a transport of joy. Mr. Gibney, for it was indeed he, pounded Captain Scraggs on the back with one great hand while with the other he crushed the skipper's fingers to a pulp, the while he called on all the powers of darkness to witness that never in all his life had he received such a pleasant surprise.
It was indeed a happy moment. All the old animosities and differences were swallowed up in the glad hand-clasp with which Mr. Gibney greeted his old s.h.i.+pmate of the green-pea trade.
Scraggs took him below at once and they pledged each other's health in a steaming kettle of grog, while the _Maggie_, once more on her course, rolled south toward Descanso Bay.
”Well, I'll be keel-hauled and skull-dragged!” said Captain Scraggs, producing a box of two-for-a-quarter cigars and handing it to Mr. Gibney. ”Gib, my _dear_ boy, wherever have you been these last three years?”
”Everywhere,” replied Mr. Gibney. ”I have been all over, mostly in Panama and the Gold Coast. For two years I've been navigatin'
officer on the Colombian gunboat _Bogota_. When I was a young feller I did a hitch in the navy and become a first-cla.s.s gunner, and then I went to sea in the merchant marine, and got my mate's license, and when I flashed my credentials on the president of the United States of Colombia he give me a job at ”dos cienti pesos oro” per. That's Spanish for two hundred bucks gold a month. I've been through two wars and I got a medal for sinkin' a fis.h.i.+n' smack. I talk Spanish just like a native, I don't drink no more to speak of, and I've been savin' my money. Some day when I get the price together I'm goin' back to San Francisco, buy me a nice little schooner, and go tradin' in the South Seas. How they been comin' with you, Scraggsy, old kiddo?”
”Lovely,” replied Scraggs. ”Just simply grand. I'll pull ten thousand out of this job.”
Mr. Gibney whistled shrilly through his teeth.
”That's the ticket for soup,” he said admiringly. ”I tell you, Scraggs, this soldier of fortune business may be all right, but it don't amount to much compared to being a sailor of fortune, eh, Scraggsy? Just as soon as I heard there was a revolution in Mexico I quit my job in the Colombian navy and come north for the pickin's.... No, I ain't been in their rotten little army....