Bemidji Daily Pioneer Newspaper, April 14, 1922, Page 2

N e - FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL 14, 1922 - - -2 ] CHAPTER |I. They had seen the fog rolling down the coast shortly after the Maggle had rounded Pilar Point at sunset and readed north. Captain Scraggs had begn steamboating too many unprofit- able years on San Francisco bay, the Suisun and San Pablo sloughs and dogholes and the Sacramento river to be deceived as to the character of that fog, and he remarked as much to Mr. Gibney. “We'd better turn back to Halfmoon bay and tie up at the dock,” he added. “Calamity howler!” retorted Mr. Gibney and gave the wheel a spoke or two. “Scraggsy, youwre enough to make n real sallor sick at the stomach.” “But I tell you she's a tule fog, Gib. She rises up in the marshes of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, drifts down to the bay and out the Golden gite and just naturally blocks the wheels of commerce while she lasts. Why, I've known the ferry hoats be- tween San Francisco and Oakland to get lost for hours on their twenty-min- ute run—and all along of a blasted tule fog.” “I don't doubt vour word a mite, Seraggsy. 1 never did see a ferry-boat skipper that knew shucks ahout sallorizing,” the imperturbable Gibney responded. “Me, Tll smell my way home in avy tule fog.” “Maybe you can an' maybe you enn't, Gib, although far be it from me to. question your abllity. TII take It for granted. Nevertheless, I ain't a-goin’ to run the risk o’ you havin' eatarrh o’ the nose an’ confusin’ your smiells tonight. You ain't got nothin’ at’ stake but your job, wherens If T lose the Maggie I lose ‘my hull for- tune. Bring her ahont, Gib, an’ let's hustle back.” “Don’t be an old woman,” Mr. Gib- ney pleaded. “Scraggs. you just aint got enough works inside you to fill a wrist wateh.” “I ain't a-goin’ to poke around In the dark an’ a tule fog, feelin® for the Golden gate” Captain Scraggs shrilled . peevishly. “H—I's bells an’ panther tracks! I've got my old courses, an’ if I foller them we can't help gettin' home.” - Captain Scraggs laid his hand on Mr. Glbney’s great arm and tried to smile paternally. *Gib, my dear boy,” he plended, “control yourself. Don't argue with me, Gib. I'm master here an' yow're mate. Do I make myself clear?" “You do, Scraggsy. But it won't avail you nothin’. Yow're anly master becuz of a gentleman’s agreement be- tween us two, an’' because I'm man enough to figger there's cestain rights due you as owner o' the Maggie. But don't you forget that accomlin’ to-the records o the Inspector's office, I'm master of the Maggie, an® the way T figger It, whenever there's any call to show n little real seamumship, that gentleman's agreement don’t stand.” “But thls ain't one o' them times, ou're whistlin® it is. Tf we run from this here fog, it's skiffs to bat- tleships we don't get into San Fran- cisco bay an discharged before six o'clock tomorrow night, By the time we've taken on coal an® water an' what-all, it'll be eight or nine o'clock, with me an' McGuffey entitied to mebbe three dollars rtime an’ havin' to argue an’ serap with you to git It—not to speak ©' havin' to put to sen the same night so's to be back in Halfmoon bay to lomd bright an’ early next mornin’. Seraggsy, T ain't no night bird on this run.” “Do you mean to defy me, Gib?" Captain Seraggs® little green eyes glenmed balefully. Mr. Gibney looked down upon him with tolerance, as a Great Dane gazes upon a fox terrler. “I certainly do, Seraggsy, old pepper- pot,” he replied ealmly. “What're you goin’ to do about it The ghost of a smile lighted his jovial countenance. /“Nothin'—now. TI'm helpless,” Cap- tain Scraggs answered with deadly calm. dock you an’ me parts company.” “1 don’t know whether we will or not Scraggsy. I ain't heeled - right financially to hit the beach on such short. notice.” ' “I'll get the police to remove you, you ‘Blistered’ ' pirnte® - Seraggs screamed, now quite heside himself. “Yes? Well, tite minute théy let go o’ me I'l come back to the 8. & Mag- gle and tear her apart just to see what makes her go." He leaned out the pllot-house window and sniffed. “Fule fog, all right, Seraggs. Still, that ain’t no reason why the ship's company should fast, is it? Quit bicl érin’ with me, little one, an® see if you can't wrastle up some ham an’ eggs. I want my eggs sunny side up.” Sensing the futility of further a menf, Captain Seraggs sought s in a stream of adjectival opprobrium, plainly meant for Mr. Gibney but d “But the minute we hit the | [ | | | fifteen hundred hard-earned dollars, | A native ce | = eraft. Desplte his “ticket” there was none so foolish as to trust him with “|'one—a condition of affairs which had tended to sour a disposition not nat- urally sweet. The yeurning to com- mand a steamboat gradually had de- veloped Into an obsession. Result— the “fast and commodious S. S. Mag- gle,” as the United States marshal had bad the audacity to advertise her. In the beginning, Captain Seraggs. had planned to do bay and rlver tow- ing with the Maggie. Alas!" The first time the unfortunate ‘Scraggs at- fempted;to tow a heavily laden barge up river, a light fog had come down, necessitating: the, frequent blowing of the’ whistle. " Following the sixth long. blast, | Mr. McGuffey had whistled ‘| Scraggs on the engine-room howler;. 4 gwearing ‘horribly, -he . had. -demanded” |, to be informed why in this and that the skipper didn't leave that dod-gast ed wl le alone. It was using up his steam .faster than he could manufac- ture it.. Thereafter, Scraggs had used livered, nevertheless, impersonally. He | '\l tent foghorn, and when the hon- closed the pilot-house door furiously behind him and started for the galley. “Some bright day I'm goin' to git tired o' hearin’ you cuss my prox Mr. Gibney bawled after him, “an’ when that fatal time arrives I'll scat- ter a can o’ Kill-Flea over ygu an’ the shippin’ world'll know you no more.” “Oh, go to—glory, you pig-iron pol- tsher,” Captain Scragzs tossed back | at him over his shoulder—and honor was satisfied. In the lee of the pilot house Captain Scraggs paused, set his | infamous old brown derby hat on the deck and leaped furlously upon it with both feet. Six times he did this; then with a blow of his fist he | knocked the rnin back into a sem- blance of its original shape and im< mediately felt better. “If 1 you, skipper, I'd hold my temper until 1 got to port; then I'd “] Certainly Do, Scraggsy, Old Pep- per.Pot/” He Replied Caimly. git jingled an’ forgit my troubles in- exbensively,” somebody -a@vised him. Seraggs turned. In a litde square hateh the head and shoulders of Mr. jnrtholomew McGuffey, chief en- gineer; first, second and third as- sistant engineer, oller, wiper, water- tender, and coal-passer of the Maggie, appeared. He wag standing on the steel Indder that led up from his stufty engine room and had evidently come up, like a whale, for a breath of fresh air. “The way you ruin them bonnets o yourn sure is a scandal,” Mr. McGuffey concinded. “If T had a temper as nasty as yourn I'd take soothin’ sirup or somethin' for it.” i L T ) RBefore proceeding further with this narrative, due respect for the render's curiosity direets that we diverge for a period suflicient to present a brief history of the steamer Maggie and her peculiar crew. We will begin with the Maggle. She had been built on Puget sound back in the eighties, and was one hun- dred and six feet over all, twenty f beam and seven feet draft. Driven by a little stecple compound engine, In the pride of her youth she could make ten knots, However, what with old age and boiler scale, the best she could do now was six, and had Mr. McGuffey paid the slightest heed to the limitations imposed upon his stenm gauge by the supervising in- spector of boilers at San Francisco, she would have been limited to five, ach annual inspection threatened to | be her last, and Captain Scraggs, her sole owner, lived in pecpetual fear that eventually the day must arrive when, to save the lives of himself and his erew, he would be forced to ship a new boiler and renew the rotten timbers around her deadwood. She | had come into Captain Sc ' pos- | S on at public auction conducted | by the United States marshal, follow- | ing her eapture as she sneaked into | San Frav 0 bay one dark night with o load of Chinamen and oplum from Ensenadn. She had cost him Scrages—Phineas P, Sceraggs, to employ his ull name—was preciseiy the kind of man one might expect to | i ' | own and operate the Maggie. Rat- faced, snaggle-toothed aud furtive, with a low cunning that sometimes | for great intelfigence, Seraggs’ cter is best described in a hom Amcrican word. e was “ornery.” of San - Franci he had grown up around the docks and had developed from messboy on a river ner to master of bay and river steamboats, although it is not of rec- exd that he ever commanded ‘such a st fall the way. est McGuffey had once more succeed- ed “in conserving sufficient steam to erawl up river, the tide had turned and the Maggie could not buck the ebb. McGuffey declared a few new tubes in the hgiler would do the trick, but on the other bhand, Mr. Gibney pointed out that the old craft was practically punk aft, and a stiff tow would jerk the tail off.the old' glirl. In despair, therefore Captain Scraggs had abandoned bay andriver towing and was prepared to jumpgverboard and end all, when an opport fereq for the freighting of | truck and dairy produce: from Half- moon bay to San Franciseo. But now'a difficulty arose. The ne\> run was an “outside” one—salt water Under the ruling of ‘the inspectors, the Maggie would be run- ning coastwise the instant she en- gaged in the green-pen and string-bean trade, and Captain Scraggs’ license provided for no such contingency. His ticket entitled him to act as master on the waters of San Francisco bay and the waters tributary thereto, and although Scraggs argued that the Pa- cific ocean constituted waters “tribu- tary theret it he understood the English language, the inspectors were obdurate. What if the distance was less than twenty-five miles? - they pointed out. The voyage was unde- niably coastwise and carried with it ull the risk of wind and wave. And In order to impress upon Captain Seraggs the weight of their authority, the inspectors suspended for six months Captain Scraggs’ bay and river license for having dared to ne- gotiate two coastwise voyages without consulting them. Furthermore, they warned him that the next time he did it they would condemn the fast and commodious Maggie. In this extremity, Fate had sent to Captain Seraggs a large. imposing, capable, but socially incifferent per- son ‘who responded to the name -of Adelbert P. Gibney. Mr, Gibney had spent part of an adventurous life in the United States navy, where he had applied himself and acquired a fair smattering of navigation. Prior to en- tering the navy he had been a fore- mast hand in clipper ships and had held a second mate’s berth. Follow- ing his discharge from the navy he had sailed coastwise on steam schoon- ers, and after attending a navigation school for two months, had procured a license as chief mate of steam, any ocean and any tonnage. Unfertunately for Mr. Gibney, he had a falling. Most of us have. The most genial fellow in the world, he was cursed with too much brains and imagination and a thirst which re- quired quenching around pay day. Also, he had that beastly habit of command which is inseparable from a born leader; when bhe held a first mate's berth, he was wont to try to “run the ship” and, on occasions, ladle out suggestions to his sklp[)cl',' ‘Thus, in time, he ncquired a reputa- tion for heing unreliable and a wind- bag, with the result that skippers were chary of engaging him. Not to be too prolix, at the time Captain Seraggs made the disheartening dis- covery that he had to have a skipper for the Mnggie, Mr. Gibney found himself reduced to the alternative of longshore work or a fo'castle berth in a windjammer bound for blue water. With alacrity, therefore, Mr. Gib- ney lad accepted Seraggs' offer of seventy-five dollars a month—"and found”—to skipper the Maggie on her constwise run. As w first mate of steam he had no difficuity inducing the Inspectors to grant him a liceuse to skipper such an abmndoned craft as the Maggie, and accordingly he hung up his ticket in her pilot house and was registered al her master, al- beit, under a gentleman's agreement with Seraggs he was not to claim the title of captain and whs known to the world as the Maggie's first mate, | second mate, third mate, quartermas- fer, purser and freight clerk. Nells Halvorsen, a solemn Swede with a placid, bovine disposition. consti- tuted the fo'castle hands, while Bart McGuffey, a wastrel of the Gibney type but slower-witted, reigned su- preme in the engine room. Also his case fesermbled that of Mr. Gibney in that McGuffey's job on the Maggie was the first he had had in six months and he treasured it accordingly. For { this reason he and Gibney had been inclined to take considerable slack from Captain Scraggs until McGuffey discovered that, in all probability. no engineer_in the world,” except him- self, would have the courage to trn<i himself within range of the Maggie's hollers, and. consequentlv. he had Captain Scraggs more or less at his merey. Upop imparting this suspicion to Mr. Gibner. the latter decided that fr would le a cold day, indeed, when his tici:et would not constitute a club .. (Continued on Page 3) One USES USEL Koors Dairy 'ICoors P:vduct? Jce Cr;:m teurized cream will-im- prove the flavor .and tastiness of your morn- ing bowl of cereal. It ~COMPAN ¥ d~ } ~DAIRY PRODUCT; A PLEASANT 1 ECONOMY “CLE.—‘\;\}LINESS is next to godliness.” Let us keep your suits or frocks in immaculate condi- tion and it will intensfy your charm. 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