"Skinner," said Cappy Ricks, "I was called out of my bed at five o'clock this morning by the night operator at the Merchants' Exchange. He told me our Retriever was in the breakers just south of Point Reyes, but that a tug was standing by. What have you heard since?"
"She drifted in there in a calm last night, sir," Mr. Skinner replied. "Fortunately the Point Reyes lookout had reported her early yesterday evening, and one of the Red Stack tugs--the Sea Fox--took a chance and went out seeking. Lucky thing for us--"
"The tug hauled her off then?"
"Got a line aboard just in time. I had a telephone message from Captain Murphy at Meiggs Wharf ten minutes ago. The Retriever is anchored in the fairway."
"What tug did you say it was?" Cappy queried.
"The Sea Fox."
"That's Matt Peasley's command," Cappy mused. "Lucky? I should say we are! It's up to the master of the tug very frequently whether, under such conditions, his task has been a mere towage job at the going rates or a salvage proposition to be settled in court. I dare say Matt will give us the benefit of the doubt and call it towage."
"Don't deceive yourself!" Skinner snapped. "It's salvage; Murphy said so. After he got close in Peasley refused to name a price and came aboard and made Murphy sign a paper acknowledging that his ship was in distress and dire peril, before he would even put a line aboard him--"
"Wow! Wow! The tugboat company will libel the ship now, and sue us for fifty thousand dollars' salvage on vessel and cargo," and Cappy groaned, for he owned both. "By George!" he continued. "I didn't think Matt would do anything like that to me. No, sir! If anybody had told me that boy could be such an ingrate I'd have told him--"
A youth entered Cappy's office uninvited.
"Captain Peasley to see you, sir," he said.
"Show the infernal fellow in," rasped Cappy, and Matt Peasley stalked into the room.
"I should like to see you privately, Mr. Ricks," he announced, and cast a significant glance at Skinner, who took the hint and left the room at once.
Matt sat down. "Well," he said, "I guess the tug Sea Fox and owners, together with her doughty skipper and crew, will finger some of your hard-earned dollars before long, Mr. Ricks. I pulled your barkentine Retriever out of the breakers this morning. In fifteen minutes she would have been on the beach and a total loss--and I have a document, signed by Captain Murphy and his mates, to prove it. I offered the pig-headed fellow a tow at ten o'clock the night before, but he declined it--trying to save a few dollars, of course--so when I had him where he had to have my services--"
"Well!" Cappy snapped, "send your owners round and we'll try to settle out of court. If they're hogs we'll fight 'em, that's all."
"And if you do you'll get licked. We'll get a quarter of the value of that vessel and her cargo. She's easily worth fifty thousand dollars and her cargo is worth thirty thousand more--that's eighty thousand, and a quarter of eighty thousand dollars is twenty thousand."
"You'll have to fight for it, I tell you," Cappy reiterated.
"There is no necessity for a fight, Mr. Ricks. It all rests with me whether this is a salvage job or just a plain towing job at the customary rates."
Cappy looked at his ex-skipper keenly.
"Matt," he charged, "you've got a scheme. You want something."
"I do; I want to save you a lot of fuss and worry and expense. In return I want you to do something for me."
"I'll do it, Matt. What is the program?"
"Give me that twenty thousand dollars you justly owe me--twenty thousand dollars I have to my credit on your books, which you are withholding just because you have the power to withhold it."
"And in return--"
"I'll tear up the deadly document I extorted from Murphy and report a mere towage job to my owners."
Cappy pressed the push-button and a boy appeared.
"Tell Mr. Skinner I want to see him," he ordered, and an instant later Mr. Skinner entered. "Skinner," said Cappy, "draw a check for twenty thousand in favor of Matt Peasley, and charge it to his account."
"And then send it over to the bank and certify it," Matt added, "because before I get through with you, Mr. Ricks, you'll be tempted to stop payment on it, if I know you--and I think I do."
Half an hour later Cappy handed Matt Peasley, a certified check for twenty thousand dollars, and in exchange the latter handed Cappy the only proof the Red Stack people would have had, over and above the contradictory testimony of the crews of the respective vessels, that the services of their tug constituted salvage and not towage. Cappy read it, tore it into shreds and glared at Matt Peasley.
"Matt," he said very solemnly, "I'm glad this thing happened. I've always had a good opinion of you, but now I know that though you have many excellent qualities you do not possess that quality which above all others I require in an employee or a son-in-law.
"You aren't loyal. You had the sweetest case of salvage against our vessel that any man could go into court with, and you kicked it away like that, just for your own selfish ends. You sacrificed your shipmates, who would have been awarded a pro rata of the salvage, and you were false to the trust your owners reposed in you."
Cappy stood up, his face pale with fury, and shook an admonitory finger under Matt Peasley's nose.
"That act, sir, is an index of your true character," he thundered. "A master who will deceive his owners, who will be false to their interests, is a scoundrel, sir; do you hear me?--a scoundrel. You will oblige me, sir, by refraining from any attentions to my daughter in the future. To think that you have descended to such a petty, miserable subterfuge to trick me and rob your owners! Thank God, I have found you out in time!"
"Yes, isn't it fortunate?" Matt answered humorously. "And if you get any angrier you'll bust an artery and die."
"Out of my office!" Cappy raved; for though he was a business man, and never hesitated to do business in a businesslike way, he was the soul of business honor, and in all his life he had never taken a mean or unfair advantage of those who trusted him. The knowledge that Matt Peasley had done such a thing filled him with rage not unmixed with sorrow.
"I'll be gone in a minute," Matt replied gently; "only before I go permit me to tell you something, and on my honor as a man and a sailor I assure you I speak the truth. That wasn't a salvage job at all."
"What?"
Matt repeated the statement. Cappy blinked and clawed at his whiskers.
"Oh," he said presently, "I had forgotten that you and Captain Murphy were once shipmates. And so that fellow Murphy stood in with you to work a hocuspocus game on me, eh?" he thundered. "By Godfrey, I'll fire him for it!" and he rushed to the office door, opened it and called to Skinner: "Skinner, Murphy is to be fired. Attend to it." Then he closed the door again and faced Matt Peasley.
"Murphy is to be reinstated," Matt assured Cappy, "for the reason that Murphy was in deadly earnest when he signed that paper. In five minutes he would have been a skipper without a ship, and he knew it. If you fire Murphy you do a fine man a terrible injustice."
"Well, how in blue blazes did he get so close to the beach and let himself into your clutches?" Cappy raved.
"He couldn't answer that question, sir. He doesn't know. He thinks the current set him in there. It didn't. I set him in there."
"You set him in?" Cappy queried incredulously.
"I set him in. I kept backing up on his starboard counter, ostensibly to dicker with him, and as soon as I had the stern of my tug within a few feet of the Retriever I'd signal my mate at the wheel, he'd give the engineer full speed ahead--why you have no idea of the force of the quick water thrown back from that big towing propeller of the Sea Fox. The rush of it just swung the Retriever's nose slowly toward the beach and kicked her ahead fifteen or twenty feet, and then her sheer momentum carried her thirty yards farther. By that time I was backed up to her again, bargaining with Murphy, and ready for another kick. It was easier after the flood tide set in, and I kept at her all night long, and gradually kicked her into the breakers, where I wanted her. I knew Murphy would listen to reason then. So you see, Mr. Ricks, it wasn't a salvage job, and I didn't betray my owners at all--"
"You Yankee thief!" Cappy yelled, and dashed at Matt, to enfold the son-in-law-to-be in a paternal embrace. "Oh, Matt, my boy, why do you want to be a tugboat man when I need a man with your brains? Why don't you be sensible and listen to reason?"
Matt held the old man off at arm's length and grinned at him affectionately.
"It's worth twenty thousand dollars to get the better of you, sir," he said.
Cappy sat down very suddenly.
"Ah, yes," he said. "Speaking of money reminds me: What do you intend doing with that twenty thousand dollars?"
"Well, I thought at first I'd go into the shipping business for myself--"
"Skiffs or gasoline launches--which?" Cappy twitted him.
"But you seem bent on having your way, and Florry is making such a fuss, I suppose I'll have to give in to you after all."
Matt stepped to the door, opened it and called: "Mr. Skinner!"
Mr. Skinner looked up from his desk by the window. "Well, sir!" he demanded haughtily.
"Murphy is not to be fired," Matt answered.
"Indeed! And by whose orders?"
"Mine! I'm the port captain of the Blue Star Navigation Company, and, beginning now, I'm going to do all the hiring and firing of captains."
Mr. Skinner turned pale. He started from his chair and made two steps toward Cappy Ricks' office, firmly resolved to present his resignation then and there. At the door, however, he thought better of it, hesitated, returned to his desk and sat down again, for he had suddenly remembered, and, remembering, discovered that Cappy Ricks had laid upon him a burden that must be reckoned with--the burden of his own future. He flushed and bit his lips; then, feeling Matt Peasley's eyes boring into the small of his back, he turned and said:
"I have every reason to believe, Captain Peasley, that you are the right man in the right place."
Matt advanced upon him and held out his hand.
"Mr. Ricks has always bragged that you could think quicker and act quicker in an emergency than any man he ever knew. He's right, you can. Suppose we bury that pick-handle, Mr. Skinner?"
Mr. Skinner's lips twitched in a wry smile, but he took Matt Peasley's hand and wrung it heartily, not because he loved Matt Peasley or ever would, but because he had a true appreciation of Abraham Lincoln's philosophy to the effect that a house divided against itself must surely fall. "I'm sure we'll get along famously together," he said.
"You know it," Matt answered heartily, and stepped back into Cappy's office.
"Well," said Cappy, "that was mighty well done, Matt. Thank you. So you think you'll quit the Sea Fox and be my port captain, eh?"
"I think so, sir."
"Well, I do not, Matt. The fact of the matter is, your business education is now about to commence, and about two minutes ago I suddenly decided that you might as well pay for it with your own money. I have no doubt such a course will meet with the approval of your independent spirit anyhow. You're a little too uppish yet, Matt. You must be chastened, and the only way to chasten a man and make him humble is to turn him loose to fight with the pack for a while. Consequently I'm going to turn you loose, Matt; there are some wolves along California Street that will take your twenty thousand away from you so fast that you won't know it's going till it's gone. But the loss will do you a heap of good--and I guess Florry can wait a while."
He paused and eyed Matt meditatively for fully a minute.
"And you kicked my barkentine ashore with the quick water from your tug's propeller," he mused aloud. "Got her where you wanted her--and Murphy didn't suspect! He laid it to the current!" Cappy shook his head. "A dirty Yankee trick," he continued, "and I love you for it--in fact, it breaks my heart not to make good that grandstand play you just pulled on Skinner, but I've changed my mind about hiring you yet. I'm just going to sit back and have some fun watching you defend that little old twenty-thousand dollars I just gave you. Do you know, Matt, that I never knew a man to save up a thousand dollars, by denying himself many things, that he didn't invest the thousand in a wild-cat mine or a dry oil well? Ah, Matt, it's those first few dollars that come so hard and go so easy that break most men's hearts; but here you are with twenty thousand that came so easy I've just naturally got to see how hard they go! You'll be worth more money to me, Matt, and you'll be a safer man to handle this business when I'm gone, if you go out and play the game for a while by yourself. You have a secret itching to do it anyhow, Matt, and in surrendering to me just now you went down with your colors flying. You just wanted to be kind to the old man, didn't you? Well, I appreciate it, Matt, because I'm an old man, and I know how hard it is for a boy to yield to an old man's wishes; but youth must be served, and God forbid that I should rob you of the joy of the conflict, my boy. When you're busted flat and need some more money, you may have it up to the amount to your credit on our books. And when that's gone I guess you'll make a better port captain than you will this morning. Does that program suit you better than the one I originally outlined?"
Matt flushed and hung his head in embarrassment, but answered truthfully: "Yes, sir."
"Very well," said Cappy, relapsing into one of his frequent colloquialisms, "go to it, boy. Eat it up."