Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Alison Bush and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: "_Captain Scraggs threw his brown derby on the
deck and leaped upon it._"]
CAPTAIN SCRAGGS
OR
THE GREEN-PEA PIRATES
BY PETER B. KYNE
AUTHOR OF CAPPY RICKS, THE LONG CHANCE,
THE VALLEY OF THE GIANTS,
WEBSTER--MAN'S MAN, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
GORDON GRANT
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1919, BY
PETER B. KYNE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SUNSET MAGAZINE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"Captain Scraggs threw his brown derby on the
deck and leaped upon it" _Frontispiece_ (_See page 6_)
FACING PAGE
"'Great Snakes!' he yelled--and fell back against
the cabin wall" 156
"Captain Scraggs ... broke from the circle
of savages ... and fled for the beach" 232
"Tabu-Tabu ... planted a mighty right in
the centre of Mr. Gibney's physiognomy" 252
CAPTAIN SCRAGGS
OR
THE GREEN-PEA PIRATES
CHAPTER I
They had seen the fog rolling down the coast shortly after the
_Maggie_ had rounded Pilar Point at sunset and headed north.
Captain Scraggs has been steamboating too many unprofitable 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, you're enough to make a real sailor 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 Gate and just naturally blocks the wheels of
commerce while she lasts. Why, I've known the ferry boats between
San Francisco and Oakland to get lost for hours on their
twenty-minute run--and all along of a blasted tule fog."
"I don't doubt your word a mite, Scraggsy. I never did see a
ferry-boat skipper that knew shucks about sailorizing," the
imperturbable Gibney responded. "Me, I'll smell my way home in
any tule fog."
"Maybe you can an' maybe you can't, Gib, although far be it
from me to question your ability. I'll take it for granted.
Nevertheless, I ain't a-goin' to run the risk o' you havin'
catarrh o' the nose an' confusin' your smells to-night. You ain't
got nothin' at stake but your job, whereas if I lose the _Maggie_
I lose my hull fortune. Bring her about, Gib, an' let's hustle
back."
"Don't be an old woman," Mr. Gibney pleaded. "Scraggs, you just
ain't got enough works inside you to fill a wrist watch."
"I ain't a-goin' to poke around in the dark an' a tule fog,
feelin' for the Golden Gate," Captain Scraggs shrilled peevishly.
"Hell'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. Gibney's great arm and tried
to smile paternally. "Gib, my _dear_ boy," he pleaded, "control
yourself. Don't argue with me, Gib. I'm master here an' you're
mate. Do I make myself clear?"
"You do, Scraggsy. But it won't avail you nothin'. You're only
master becuz of a gentleman's agreement between us two, an'
because I'm man enough to figger there's certain rights due you
as owner o' the _Maggie_. But don't you forget that accordin' to
the records o' the Inspector's office, I'm master of the
_Maggie_, an' the way I figger it, whenever there's any call to
show a little real seamanship, that gentleman's agreement don't
stand."
"But this ain't one o' them times, Gib."
"You're whistlin' it is. If we run from this here fog, it's
skiffs to battleships we don't get into San Francisco Bay an'
discharged before six o'clock to-morrow 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 entitled to mebbe three dollars
overtime an' havin' to argue an' scrap with you to git it--not to
speak o' havin' to put to sea the same night so's to be back in
Halfmoon Bay to load bright an' early next mornin'. Scraggsy, I
ain't no night bird on this run."
"Do you mean to defy me, Gib?" Captain Scraggs' little green eyes
gleamed balefully. Mr. Gibney looked down upon him with
tolerance, as a Great Dane gazes upon a fox terrier. "I certainly
do, Scraggsy, old pepper-pot," he replied calmly. "What're you
goin' to do about it?" The ghost of a smile lighted his jovial
countenance.
"Nothin'--now. I'm helpless," Captain Scraggs answered with
deadly calm. "But the minute we hit the dock you an' me parts
company."
"I don't know whether we will or not, Scraggsy. I ain't heeled
right financially to hit the beach on such short notice."
"That ain't no skin off'n my nose, Gib."
"Well, you can fire all you want, but you won't fire me. I won't
go."
"I'll get the police to remove you, you blistered pirate,"
Scraggs screamed, now quite beside himself.
"Yes? Well, the minute they let go o' me I'll come back to the
S.S. _Maggie_ and tear her apart just to see what makes her go."
He leaned out the pilot house window and sniffed. "Tule fog, all
right, Scraggs. Still, that ain't no reason why the ship's
company should fast, is it? Quit bickerin' 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 argument, Captain Scraggs sought
solace in a stream of adjectival opprobrium, plainly meant for
Mr. Gibney but delivered, nevertheless, impersonally. He 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
proxy," Mr. Gibney bawled after him, "an' when that fatal time
arrives I'll scatter a can o' Kill-Flea over you an' the shippin'
world'll know you no more."
"Oh, go to--glory, you pig-iron polisher," Captain Scraggs tossed
back at him over his shoulder--and honour was satisfied. In the
lee of the pilot house Captain Scraggs paused, set his infamous
old brown derby hat on the deck and leaped furiously upon it with
both feet. Six times he did this; then with a blow of his fist he
knocked the ruin back into a semblance of its original shape and
immediately felt better.
"If I was you, skipper, I'd hold my temper until I got to port;
then I'd git jingled an' forgit my troubles inexpensively,"
somebody advised him.
Scraggs turned. In a little square hatch the head and shoulders
of Mr. Bartholomew McGuffey, chief engineer; first, second and
third assistant engineer, oiler, wiper, water-tender, and
coal-passer of the _Maggie_, appeared. He was standing on the
steel ladder that led up from his stuffy 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 concluded. "If I had a temper as nasty as yourn I'd
take soothin' syrup or somethin' for it."
Without waiting for a reply, Mr. McGuffey dropped back into his
department and Captain Scraggs, his soul filled with rage and
dire forebodings, repaired to the galley, and "candled" four
dozen eggs. Out of the four dozen he found nine with black spots
in them and carefully set them aside to be fried, sunny side up,
for Mr. Gibney and McGuffey.