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Show I THE QREEW PEA PIRATES 1 By PETER B. KYNE i j cAuthor of "WEBSTER MAN'S MAN," "THE VALLEY OF THE GIANTS," Etc Copyright, by Peter B. Kynm I I1 'I O ", "Green Pea Pirates" is a combination of sea and land narrative told in the inimitable style which has given the Peter B. Kyne stories such a strong pull with the reading public It is jolly, even rollicking and has thrill, romance and punch. i ; he was worried. The fog, If anything, was thicker than ever. Time passed. Suddenly Mr. Gibney thrilled electrically to a shrill yip from Captain Scraggs. "What's thatr Mr. Glbney bawled. "I dunno. Sounds like the surf, Gib." "Ain't you been on this run long enough to know that the surf don't sound like nothln' else In life but breakers?" Glbney retorted wrathfully. "1 ain't certain, Gib." Instantly Glbney signaled McGuffey for half speed ahead. "Breakers on the starboard bow," yelled Captain Scraggs. "Port bow," The Squarehead corrected cor-rected him. "Oh, my great patience!" Mr. Glbney Glb-ney groaned. "They're on both bowa an' we're headed straight for the beach. Here's where we all go to the devil together," and he yanked wildly at the signal wire that led to the engine room, with the Intention of giving McGuffey four bells the signal craft. Despite 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-uraliy nat-uraliy sweet. The yearning to command com-mand a steamboat gradually had developed de-veloped into aa obsession. Result the 'fast and commodious S. S. Maggie," Mag-gie," as the United States marshal, had had the audacity to advertise her. In the beginning, Captain Scraggs had planned to do bay and river towing tow-ing with the Maggie. Alas I The first time the unfortunate Scraggs attempted at-tempted 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; swearing horribly, he had demanded to be informed why in this and that the skipper didn't leave that dod-gast-ed whistle alone. It wag using up his steam faster than he could manufacture manufac-ture it. Thereafter. Scraggs had used a patent foghorn, and when the honest hon-est McGuffey had once more succeeded succeed-ed In conserving sufficient steam to crawl up river, the tide had turned and the Maggie could not buck the ebb. McGuffey declared a few new tubes In the boiler would do the trick, but on the other hand, Mr. Glbney pointed out that the old craft was practically punk aft and a stiff tow would jerk the tall off the old girl. In despair, therefore Captain Scraggs had abandoned bay and river towing and was prepared to jump overboard and end all, when an opportunity offered of-fered for the freighting of garden truck and dairy produce from Half-moon Half-moon bay to San Francisco. But now a difficulty arose. The new run was an "outside" one salt water all the way. Under the ruling of the Inspectors, the Maggie would be running run-ning coastwise the Instant she engaged en-gaged in the green-pea 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 Pacific Pa-cific ocean constituted waters "tributary "tribu-tary thereto," if 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 undeniably unde-niably coastwise and carried with It all the risk of wind and wave. And 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 Glbney had been Inclined to take considerable slack from Captain Scraggs until McGuffey discovered that. In all probability, no engineer In the world, except hlm-, hlm-, self, would have the courage to trust himself within range of the Maggie's boilers, and, consequently, he had Captain Scraggs more or less at his mercy. Upon Imparting this suspicion to Mr. Glbney, the latter decided that it would be a cold day, Indeed, when his ticket would not constitute a club wherewith to make Scraggs, as Glbney Glb-ney expressed it "mind his P's and Q's." It will be seen, therefore, that mutual mu-tual necessity held this queerly assorted as-sorted trio together, and, though they quarreled furiously, nevertheless, with the passage of time their own weaknesses weak-nesses and those of the Maggie had aroused in each for the other a curious curi-ous affection. While Captain Scraggs frequently "pulled" a monumental bluff and threatened to dismiss both Glbney and McGuffey and, in fact, occasionally went so far as to order them off his- ship, on their part Gib-ney Gib-ney and McGuffey were wont to work the same racket and resign. With the subsidence of their anger and the return re-turn to reason, however, the trio had a habit of meeting accidentally in the Bowhead saloon, where, sooner or later, they were certain to bury their grudge in a foaming beaker of steam beer, and return joyfully to the Maggie. Mag-gie. Of till the little ship's company, Nells Halvorsen, colloquially designated desig-nated as "The Squarehead," was the only Individual who was, in truth and in fact, his own man. Neils was steady, Industrious, faithful, capable, and reliable ; any one of a hundred deckhand Jobs were ever open to Nells, yet for some reason best known to himself, he preferred to stick by the Maggie. In his dull way it is probable that he was fascinated by the agile intelligence of Mr. Glbney, the vitriolic tongue of Captain Scraggs, and the elephantine wit and grizzly bear courage of Mr. McGuffey. At any rate, he delighted in hearing them snarl and wrangle. However, to return to the Maggie which we left entering the tule fog a few miles north of Pilar point: , CHAPTER I. I 1 ' They had seen the fog rolling down the coaat shortly after the Maggie had rounded Pilar Point at sunset and readed north. Captain Scraggs had been steamboatlng too many unprofitable unprofit-able years on San Francisco bay, the Bulsun and Ban -Pablo sloughs and ogholes and the Sacramento river to be deceived as to the character of that fog, and he remarked as much to Mr. Glbney. "We'd better turn back to Halfmoon bay and tie up at the flock," he added. "Calamity howler t" retorted Mr. Olbney and gave the wheel a spoke or two. "Scraggsy, you're enough to make a real sailor sick at the toriiach." "But I tell you she's a tule fog, Gib. Bhe rises up In the marshes of the Bacrsmcnto and San Joaquin, drifts flown 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 be-tween San Francisco and Oakland to get lost for hours on their twenty-mln-nte run and all along of a blasted tule fog." "I don't doubt your word a mite, Bcraggsy. I never did see a ferry-boat skipper that knew shucks about aUorizing," the imperturbable Glbney responded. "Me, I'll smell my way home In any tule fog." "Maybe you can an mnybe 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-goln' to run the risk o' you havln' catarrh o' the nose an' confusin' your smells tonight You ain't got nothln' at stake but your Job, whereas if I lose the Maggie I lose my hull fortune. for-tune. Bring her about, Gib, an' let's bustle back." "Don't be an old woman," Mr. Glbney Glb-ney pleaded. "Scraggs, you Just ain't got enough works inside you to fill a wrist watch." i. ."I ain't a-goln' to poke around in the dark an' a tule fog, feelln' for th Golden gate," Captain Scraggs llvered, nevertheless. Impersonally, ne closed the pilot-house door furiously behind him and started for the galley. "Some bright day I'm goln' to git tired o' hearln' you cuss my proxy," Mr. Glbney bawled after him, "an' when that fatal time arrives I'll scatter scat-ter a can o' Kill-Flea over you an' the shlppln' world'll know you no more." "Oh, go to glory, you plg-lron polisher," pol-isher," Captain Scraggs 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 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 sem-blnnce sem-blnnce of its original shape and immediately im-mediately felt better. "If I was you, skipper, I'd hold my temper until I got to port ; then I'd git jingled an' forglt my troubles inexpensively," in-expensively," somebody advised him. Scraggs turned. In a little square hatch the head and shoulders of Mr. Bartholomew McGuffey, chief engineer; en-gineer; first second and third assistant as-sistant engineer, oiler, wiper, water-tender, 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 soothln' sirup or somethln' for it." Before proceeding further with this narrative, due respect for the reader's curiosity directs that we diverge for a period sufficient to present a brief history of the steamer Maggie and her peculiar crew. We will begin with the Maggie. She had been built on Puget sound back in the eighties, and was one hundred hun-dred and six feet over all, twenty-six feet beam and seven feet draft Driven by a little steeple compound engine, in the pride of her youth she could make ten knots. However, what But No Answering Echo Reached His Ears. 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 steam gauge by the supervising Inspector In-spector of boilers at San Francisco, she would have been limited to five. Each annual inspection threatened to be her last and Captain Scraggs, her sole owner, lived in perpetual fear that eventually the day must arrive when, to save the lives of himself and his crew, he would be forced to ship a new boiler and renew the rotten timbers around her deadwood. She had come into Captain Scraggs' pos- aboard the Maggie for full speed astern. At the second Jerk the wire broke, but not until two bells had sounded In the engine room the signal for full speed ahead. The efficient McGuffey promptly kicked her wide open, and the Fates decreed that, having done so, Mr. McGuffey should forthwith climb the ladder and thrust his head out on deck for a breath of fresh air. Instantly a chorus of shrieks up on the fo'castle head attracted at-tracted his attention to such a degree that he failed to hear the engine room howler as Mr. Glbney blew frantically Into- it Presently, out of the hubbub forward, for-ward, Mr. McGuffey heard Captain Scraggs wail frantically: "Stop her! For the love of heaven, stop her 1" Instantly In-stantly the engineer dropped back into the engine room and set the Maggie full speed astern ; then he grasped the howler and held It to his ear. "Stop her I" he heard Glbney shriek. "Why in blazes don't you stop her?" "She's set astern, Gib. She'll ease up In a minute." "You know It!" Glbney answered significantly. Tha Maggie climbed lazily to the crest of a long oily roller, slid recklessly reck-lessly down the other side, and took the following sea over her taffrall. She still had some head on, but very little not quite sufficient to give her decent steerage way, as Mr. Glbney discovered when, having at length communicated com-municated his desires to McGuffey, he spun the wheel frantically In a belated be-lated effort to swing the Maggie's dirty nose out to sea. "Nothing doln'," he snarled. "She'll have to come to a complete stop before she begins to walk backward and get steerage way on again. She'll bump as sure as death an' taxes." "She'll bump aa lure as .death an taxes." (TO BE CONTINUED.) shrilled peevishly. "H I's bells an' panther tracks I Tve got my old courses, an' if I foller them we can't help gettln' home," Captain Scraggs laid his hand on Mr. Glbney's great arm and tried to inille paternally. "Gib, my dear boy," he pleaded, "control yourself. Don't argue with me, Gib. Via master here an you're mate. Do I make myself clear?" "Tou do, Scraggsy. But it won't avail you nothln'. You're only master becuz of a gentleman's agreement between be-tween 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 aecordin' to the records o' the Inspector's office, rm master of the Maggie, an' the way I Bgger 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 whlstlm' It is. If we run from this here fog, it's skiffs to battleships bat-tleships we don't get Into San Francisco 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 entitled to niebbe three dollars overtime an' havin' to argue an' scrap with you to, git it not to speak o' havln' to put to sea the same night so's to be back In Halfmoon bay to load bright an' early next mornln'. 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. Glbney looked down upon him with tolerance, as a Great Dane gazes upon a fox terrier. "I certainly do, Scraggsy, old pepper-pot," pepper-pot," he replied calmly. "What're you goln' to do about It?" . The ghost of a smile lighted his Jovial countenance. "Nothln' now. I'm helpless," Captain Cap-tain 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 6hort notice." " ' "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. Mag-, gle 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 bick-erln' bick-erln' 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, argu-ment, Captain Scraggs sought solace in a stream of adjectival opprobrium, plainly meant for Mr. Glbney but de- In order to Impress upon Captain Scraggs the weight of their authority, the inspectors suspended for six months Captain Scraggs' bay and river license for having dared to negotiate 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 Scraggs a large, imposing, capable, but socially Indifferent person per-son who responded to the name of Adelbert P. Gibney. Mr. Glbney 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 entering en-tering the navy he had been a foremast fore-mast hand In clipper Bhlps and had held a second mate's berth. Following Follow-ing his discharge from the navy he had sailed coastwise on steam schooners, 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. - Unfortunately for Mr. Glbney, he had a failing. Most of us have. The most genial fellow In the world, he was cursed with too much brains and imagination and a thirst which required re-quired quenching around pay day. Also, he had that beastly habit of commnnd which Is inseparable from a born leader; when he held a first mate's berth, he was wont to try to "run the ship" and, on occasions, ladle out suggestions to his skipper. Thus, In time, he acquired a reputation reputa-tion for being unreliable and a windbag, wind-bag, with the result that skippers were chary of engaging him. Not to be too prolix, at the time Captain Scraggs made the disheartening discovery dis-covery that he had to have a skipper for the Maggie, Mr. Glbney 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. Glbney Glb-ney bad accepted Scraggs' offer of seventy-five dollars a month "and found" to skipper the Maggie on her coastwise run. As a first mate of steam he had no difficulty Inducing the Inspectors to grant him a license to skipper such an abandoned craft as the Maggie, and accordingly he hung up his ticket in her pilot house and was registered as her master, albeit, al-beit, under a gentleman's agreement with Scraggs he was not to claim the title of captain and was known to the world as the Maggie's first mate, second mate, third mate, quartermaster, quartermas-ter, purser and freight clerk. One Nells Halvorsen, a solemn Swede with a placid, bovine disposition, constituted consti-tuted the fo'castle hands, while Bart McGuffey, a wastrel of the Gibney type but slower-witted, reigned supreme su-preme in the engine room. Also his case resembled that of Mr, Gibney in CHAPTER II. Captain Scraggs and The Squarehead Square-head partook first of the ham and eggs, coffee and bread, which the skipper prepared. Scraggs then prepared pre-pared a similar meal for Mr. Glbney and McGuffey, set it in the oven to keep warm, and descended to the engine en-gine room to relieve McGuffey for dinner. din-ner. Neils at the same time took the course from Mr. Gibney and relieved the latter at the wheel: By this time, darkness had descended upon the world, and the Maggie had entered the fog ; following her custom she proceeded pro-ceeded In absolute silence, although as a partial offset to the extreme liability to collision with other coastwise craft, due to the non-whistling rule aboard the Maggie, Mr. Glbney had laid a course half a mile inside the usual steamer lanes, albeit due to his overwhelming over-whelming desire for peace he had neglected to Inform his owner of this; the honest fellow proceeded upon the hypothesis that what people do not know Is not apt to trouble them. Captain Scraggs read the log and reported the mileage to Mr. Gibney, who figured with the stub of a pencil on the pilot house wall, wagged his head, and appeared satisfied. "Better go f'or'd," he ordered, "an' help The Squarehead on the lookout. At eight o'clock we ought to be right under the lee o' Point San Pedro; when I whistle we ought to catch the echo thrown back by the cliff. Listen for It." Promptly at eight o'clock Mr. McGuffey Mc-Guffey was horrified to see his steam gauge drop half a pound as the Maggie's Mag-gie's siren sounded. Mr. Gibney stuck his ingenious head out of the pilot house and listened, but no answering echo reached his ears. "Hear anything?" any-thing?" he bawled. "Heard the Maggie's siren," Captain Scraggs retorted venomously. Mr. Gibney leaped out on deck, selected se-lected a small head of cabbage from a broken crate and hurled it forward. Then he sprang back into the pilot house and straightened the Maggie on her course again. He leaned over the binnacle, with the cuff of his watch-coat watch-coat wiping away the moisture on the glass, and studied the instrument carefully. care-fully. "I don't trust the danged thing," he muttered. "Guess I'll haul her off a coupler points an' try the whistle again." He did. Still no echo. He was Inclined In-clined to believe that Captain Scraggs had not read the taffrall log correctly, and when at eight-thirty he tried the whistle again he was still without results re-sults In the way of an echo from the cliff, albeit the engine room howler brought him several of a profuse character char-acter from the perspiring McGuffey. "We've passed Pedro," Mr. Glbney decided. He ground his cud and muttered mut-tered ugly things to himself, for his dead reckoning had gone astray and "1 Certainly Do, Scraggsy, Old Pepper-Pot" He Replied Calmly. session at public auction conducted by the United States marshal, following follow-ing her capture as she sneaked Into San Francisco bay one dark night with a load of Cliinamen and opium from Ensenada. She had cost him fifteen hundred hard-earned dollars. Scraggs Phlneas P. Scraggs, to . employ his full name was precisely the k'nd of man one might expect to own and operate the Margle. Rat-faced, Rat-faced, snaggle-toothed and furtive, with a low cunning that sometimes passed for great Intelligence, Scraggs' character is best described In a homely home-ly American word.' He was "ornery." A native of San Francisco, he had grown up around the docks and had developed from messboy on a river steamer to master of bay and river steamboats, although It Is not of record rec-ord that he ever commanded such a |