In the meantime the port captain would be making daily visits to the shipyard to make certain that the builder was holding rigidly to the specifications and not trying to skimp here and there; and on Saturdays Cappy would accompany him and satisfy himself that the port captain wasn't being imposed upon. Finally the ship would be launched; and as she slid down the ways Cappy Ricks would be standing on her forecastle head, his old heart fluttering in his thirty-six-inch chest and his coat-tails fluttering in the breeze, one arm round the port captain and the other round the port engineer. As the hull slipped into the drink he would say:

"Boys, this is the life! I love it! By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, there's more romance in ships than you'll find in most married lives!" Then he would wave an arm up Oakland Estuary, which prior to the great war was the graveyard of Pacific Coast shipping, and say with great pride: "Well, we've done a good job on this craft, boys; she'll never end in Rotten Row! Every sliver in her is air-dried and seasoned. That's the stuff! Build 'em of unseasoned material and dry rot develops the first year; in five years they're punk inside, and then—some fine day they're posted as missing at Lloyd's. Did you ever see a Blue Star ship lying in Rotten Row? No; you bet you didn't—and you never will! I never built a cheap boat and I never ran 'em cheap. By gravy, the Blue Star ships are like the Blue Nose that owns 'em! They'll be found dead on the job!"

Quite early in 1915 the Blue Star Navigation Company had found ample opportunity, due to a world scarcity of tonnage, to dispose of several of their oldest and smallest steam schooners at unbelievably fine prices.

"Get rid of them, Matt," Cappy advised his son-in-law, Captain Matt Peasley, whom he had made president of the company. "You have the permission of the president emeritus to go as far as you like. Big boats for us from now on, boy. Slip the little ones while the slipping is good. These high prices will not prevail very long—only while the war continues; and at the rate they're slaughtering each other over in France the war will be over in six months; then prices will fall kerflump! Then we'll build a couple of real steamers."

So Matt Peasley promptly sold five steam schooners, following which he made up his mind that the world still had two years of war ahead of it. Accordingly he urged the letting of contracts for two seven-thousand-five-hundred-ton steel freighters immediately.

"Nothing doing!" Cappy declared. "Why, it's rank nonsense to think of building now at wartime prices. If our recent sales have pinched us for tonnage we'll have to charter from our neighbors and worry along as best we can until the war is over."

"You're making a mistake, Cappy Ricks," his son-in-law warned him.

"Ask Skinner if I am. Skinner, let's have your opinion."

Mr. Skinner, always cautious and ultra-conservative promptly advised against Matt Peasley's course; but Matt would not be downed without a fight.

"I know prices for ship construction are fearfully high just now," he admitted; "but—mark my words!—they're going to double; and if we place our contracts now, while we have an opportunity to do so, we'll be getting in on the ground floor. I tell you that war hasn't really started yet; and the longer it continues the higher will prices on all commodities soar—but principally on ship construction. Father-in-law, I beg of you to let me get busy and build. Suppose the boats do cost us a quarter of a million dollars more each than we could have built them for in 1914. What of it? We have the money—and if we didn't have it we could borrow it. I don't care what a ship costs me when freight rates are soaring to meet the advance in construction costs."

Nevertheless, Cappy and Mr. Skinner hooted him down. Three months later, however, when Cappy Ricks had changed his mind, and Mr. Skinner was too heartbroken to curse himself for a purblind idiot, it was too late to place the contracts. Every shipyard in the United States and abroad was loaded up with building orders for three years in advance, and the Blue Star Navigation Company was left to twiddle its corporate thumbs. Matt Peasley was so angry that he almost speculated on the delight of being at sea again, in command of a square rigger, with Cappy Ricks and Mr. Skinner signed on as A.B.'s; in which condition of servitude he might dare to call them aft and knock their heads together. However, he managed to have his revenge. Every time nitrate freights went up a dollar a ton he told them about it with great gusto, and the day he chartered the Tillicum for Vladivostok, with steel for the Russian Government at seventy-five dollars a ton, he had poor Cappy moaning in his wretchedness.

"Just think how nice it would be," he taunted his aged relative, "if we had only placed contracts for two big boats when I urged it. By the middle of summer I'd have them both on the Vladivostok run—perhaps at a hundred dollars a ton; and long before the war is over you could do what you've been trying to do for the past ten years."

"Do what?" Cappy queried.

"Retire!" Matt retorted meaningly.

"In-fernal young scoundrel!" Cappy was angry enough to commit murder. "Out of my office!" he shrilled, and pointed to the door.



CHAPTER XLV



For once in his busy life it was, figuratively speaking, raining duck soup, and poor Cappy was there with a fork! When he had recovered his composure he sent for Matt Peasley.

"Matt, my dear boy," he confessed miserably, "this is certainly one occasion upon which father appears to have overlooked his hand. However, none of us is perfect; and if we're caught out without an umbrella, so to speak—"

"We?" Matt reminded him witheringly. "Cappy, it's all right to use that 'we' stuff when you're talking to Skinner, but trot out the perpendicular pronoun when you're talking to me. I hate to say 'I told you so'; but—"

"Lay off me!" Cappy pleaded. "I'm an old man, Matt; so be easy on me. Besides, I don't make a mistake very often, and you know it."

"I do know it. But when you blocked me on that building scheme you certainly made up for lost time. Really, Cappy, you mustn't make me play so close to my vest in these brisk times. If I'm to manage the Blue Star Navigation Company I mustn't have my ideas pooh-poohed as if I were a hare-brained child."

"I know, Matt; I know. But I built up the Blue Star Navigation Company and the Ricks Lumber & Logging Company by playing 'em close, and it's a hard habit to break.

"However, let us forget the past and look forward with confidence to the future. Matt, my dear boy, since we cannot get a shipyard to build a steamer for us, I'm going to break a rule of forty years' standing and buy one in the open market. I guess that'll prove to you I'm not so hide-bound with conservatism as you think. Go forth into the highways and the byways, Matt, and see what they have for sale."

"How high do you want me to go?"

"As high as they hung Haman—if you find it necessary."

"That's certainly a free hand; but I'm afraid it comes too late. I doubt if there is an owner with the kind of steamer we want who is crazy enough to sell her."

"Tish! Tush! All things are for sale all the time. Scour the market, Matt, and you'll find Cappy Ricks isn't the only damned fool left in the shipping business. My boy, you'd be surprised at the number of so-called business men who are entirely devoid of imagination. Dozens of them still think the war will end this fall, but I'm willing to make a healthy bet that the fall of 1917 still finds them going to it to beat four of a kind."

"You said something that time, father-in-law," Matt replied laughingly.

Then he roughed the old man affectionately and went forth into California Street, where he wore out much shoe leather before he located what he considered a bargain and reported back to the president emeritus.

"You're right, Cappy!" he declared. "You aren't the only boob in the shipping business. I've located another."

"That's what you get by taking father's advice," Gappy retorted proudly. "Have you bought a steamer?"

"No; but I'm going to buy one this afternoon. She's going to cost us half a million dollars, cash on the nail, and I have an option on her at that figure until noon today. Skinner has a lot of lumber money he isn't using, and I'm going to borrow a quarter of a million from his company on the Blue Star note at six per cent. Don't want to run our own treasury too low."

"Dog-gone that Skinner! That's some more of his efficiency. I own both companies, and it's just like taking money out of one pocket and putting it into the other; but Skinner's a bug on system. Just think of making me pay myself six per cent interest! However, I suppose we must have some kind of order. What's the name of the steamer?"

"The Penelope."

Cappy Ricks slid out to the edge of his chair, placed one hand on each knee, and appraisingly eyed his son-in-law over the rims of his glasses.

"Say that again, Matt—and say it slow," he ordered.

"I said Penelope—P-e-n-e-l-o-p-e. Maybe you call her the Pen-elope!"

"Are you buying her as is?" Matt nodded. "To hear you tell it, Matt, one might gather the impression that half a million dollars is about what we give the janitor at Christmas. Boy, half a million dollars is real money."

"Not in the shipping business these days, Cappy. Why, you have to wave that much under an owner's nose before he'll look up and show interest enough to ask you who you are and who let you in."

"Well, the man who would, in cold blood, consider paying half a million dollars for the Penelope is certainly ripe for a padded cell," Cappy jeered. "That fellow Hudner, of the Black Butte Lumber Company, owns her, does he not?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then you know exactly the condition she's in. I'll bet a cooky her bottom plates are rusted so thin from lack of an occasional coat of red paint that if you were to stand on her bridge and toss a tack hammer down her main hatch you'd punch a hole in her. She's a long, narrow-gutted, cranky coffin—that's what she is; and the worst-found ship in Pacific waters. Why, let me tell you something, young man: she can't get by the inspectors this minute."

"She has just gotten by them," Matt contradicted. "Passed yesterday."

"What does that signify? When her skipper has her up for inspection he scours the water front like a hungry dog, borrowing a boathook here, a sound life-boat there, some fire buckets elsewhere, a hose from the fire tug, and a lot of engine-room tools wherever he can get them. As for life preservers, he rents them for ten cents each from a marine junk dealer. So, when the inspectors arrive, the Penelope is a well-found ship; as soon as they pass her the skipper returns the equipment, with thanks. As for paint—why, the only painting she ever gets is when Hudner lays her alongside some British ship to discharge a foreign cargo of lumber into the lime-juicer; then her mate steals all the paint in the Britisher's lazaret. The poor, unfortunate devil! He has to do something to make a showing with the Penelope's owner! I tell you, Matt, I know this man Hudner! He's as thrifty as an Armenian and as slippery as a skating rink. He's laying to stab you, boy. Mind your step!"

"Even so, Cappy, she's a bargain. I expect to spend fifty thousand dollars putting her in first-class condition after we get her."

"You expect to spend it! Why, how you talk! Hudner is the one that should spend that money. For the love of trade, what is he selling you? A ship or a hulk?"

"I don't care what she is; we can make her pay for herself and earn half a million or a million extra before this war ends. And she won't be such a bad vessel after she's shipped a couple of new plates. She has a dead weight capacity for six thousand tons and was built at Sunderland in 1902. When she went ashore off Point Sur, in 1909, Hudner bought her from the underwriters for five thousand dollars and spent more than half her original cost repairing her. That, of course, made her tantamount to a ship built in the United States, and under American registry she can run between American ports. And that's what we want. She'll be just the thing to carry lumber to New York, via the Canal, when the war ends and the nitrate harvest is over."

Cappy Ricks threw up his hands.

"You see before you, my boy," he said mournfully, "a dollar-burdened, world-weary old man, who for ten years has been trying to retire from active business, and cannot. The reason is he dassent; if he dassed, this shebang would be in the hands of the sheriff within a year. Now, listen, young feller! I know all about the Penelope. Before the war she had repaid Hudner, with interest, every cent she cost him, and since the war I suppose she's made half a million dollars. Now when Hudner finds he has to spend a lot of money fixing her up, he figures it's best to get rid of her and saddle somebody else with the bill. Her intrinsic value is just about one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, and when Hudner asks half a million for her he expects to get four hundred and fifty thousand. In order to play safe, go back and offer him four hundred thousand dollars; presently he'll come down fifty thousand and you'll come up fifty thousand, and the trade will be closed on that basis. Meantime I'll sit here and weep as I reflect on the cost of putting that ruin in fit shape to receive a Blue Star house flag. I tell you, Matt, I wouldn't send Pancho Villa to sea in her as she is now."

Matt Peasley, like Cappy Ricks, was a Yankee; when he did business he liked to chaffer; and, after all—he thought—there was a certain shrewd philosophy in what his foxy father-in-law had said. At least Cappy had supplied him with ammunition for argument; so he went back to Hudner's office and argued and pleaded and ridiculed, but all to no avail. He returned to Cappy Ricks' office.

"I fought him all over his office," he complained, "but he wouldn't come down a cent. I think we'd better take a chance and give him half a million."

"Fiddlesticks! Stay with him, Matt. I know Hudner. He acts like he's full of bellicose veins, but anybody can outgame him. Let your option expire; then to-morrow meet him accidentally on 'Change and talk with him half an hour about everything on earth except the S. S. Penelope. Just before you leave him he'll grab you by the lapel of your coat and ask if you're still interested in the Penelope. Then you say: 'Why, yes—moderately; but not at half a million.' Then you make him a firm offer—for the last time—of four hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and he'll say: 'I'll split the difference with you'—and before he can crawfish you accept. You're bound to make at least twenty-five thousand by following my advice, Matt."

Matt Peasley ran his big hand through his thick black locks.

"By jingo," he declared, "we'd make twenty-five thousand dollars while we're dickering with Hudner!"

"I know, my boy; but then I don't like Hudner, and it's awful to do business with a son of a horsethief you don't like and let him put one over on you. That's the thrill of doing business, Matt. Though I'd hate to have anybody think I'm in business for fun, still, if I thought I couldn't get some fun out of business I'd go right down to Mission Street Wharf and end all."

"Nitrate freights are up to thirty dollars a ton," said Matt later that day. "They were twelve a year and a half ago. Cappy, we can't risk the delay; and I'm sorry I took your advice and let my option expire. I insist on buying." He reached for Cappy's desk 'phone. "I'm going to tell Hudner to prepare the bill of sale—that I'll be up in fifteen minutes with the check. He who hesitates is lost, and—"

The door opened and a youth stood in the entrance.

"Mr. J. O. Heyfuss is calling," he announced.

"Show him in immediately," Cappy ordered, glad of the opportunity to delay Matt's telephonic acceptance of the vessel at Hudner's price. "Hold on a minute, Matt," he continued, turning to his son-in-law. "Heyfuss is a ship broker; maybe he has a ship to sell us; she might prove to be a better buy than the Penelope... Howdy, Heyfuss? Come in and sit down."

Mr. Heyfuss entered smilingly, saluted both satellites of the Blue Star and sat down.

"Well, gentlemen," he announced, "wonders will never cease. Every day I'm seeing, hearing and doing wonderful things in the shipping business. Day before yesterday I bought the old barkentine Mayfair. She'd been laid up in Rotten Row for seven years, and for at least four years the tide has been rising and falling inside her. She cost me seven hundred and fifty dollars, and I sold her the same afternoon to Al Hanify for a thousand. Not very much of a profit; but then it was Saturday and everybody closes up shop at noon, you know. So I felt the day wasn't a blank, anyhow.

"And what do you suppose Al did? You'll laugh. He called up Crowley her out on Hanlon's Marine Way, putting a new bottom in her. They're going to spend twenty thousand dollars on her; and when she's ready for sea Redell has a cargo of fir for Sydney waiting for her.

"She'll come back with coal and make her owners at least fifty thousand dollars."

"That's all very interesting to outsiders, but commonplace stuff to us," Cappy reminded his visitor. "Have you got a commission to sell a ship for somebody?"

"Want one?"

"Surest thing you know!"

"All right. I'll sell you the Alden Besse. She's an old tea clipper, built in the forties; but she's sound and tight. Been a motion picture ship for the past five years. I can deliver her to you for forty thousand dollars."

"No, you'll not. I sold her to the motion picture people for fifteen hundred," Cappy countered, "and I don't want her back at any price. I send my boys to sea to earn a safe living, not to visit Davy Jones' locker."

"Well, I think I might get you the old Australian prison ship, Success. She was built at Rangoon in 1790, of teak, and will last forever. Perhaps you saw her when she was exhibited at the Exposition last year. Might get her for you kind of cheap."

"Nothing doing. Heyfuss, we want a steamer."

"Sorry, but I haven't a thing in steamers. Just sold the last one I had ten minutes ago—the Penelope."

"The what!" Matt Peasley and Cappy cried in chorus.

"The Penelope. Sold her to a big Eastern powder company. She goes into the nitrate trade, of course. These munition manufacturers must have powder, and to get powder they must have nitrate, and to get nitrate they must have ships, and to get ships they must pay the price. I got Hudner a million dollars for that ruin of a Penelope."

Matt Peasley gently seized J. O. Heyfuss by the ear and led him to the door.

"Out, thief!" he cried. "You can't sell us anything; so we don't want you hanging round this office. You might steal the safe or a roll-top desk, or something."

Heyfuss departed, laughing good-naturedly, and Matt Peasley turned to confront Cappy Ricks. The latter had shrunk up in his chair and was looking as chopfallen and guilty as a dog caught sucking eggs. He favored his big son-in-law with a quick, shifty glance, and then looked down at the carpet.

Matt folded his arms and stared at him until he looked up.

"Don't you go to pick on me!" he warned Matt furiously. "I'll not be picked on in my own office, even by a relative."

Matt threw back his head and chanted,

"There was I, waiting at the church, Waiting at the church—"

"I was right!" Cappy shrilled. "My mode of procedure was without a flaw."

"Absolutely! The operation was a success, but the patient died."

"But a feller just has to haggle!" Cappy wailed. He was almost on the verge of tears. "It's the basic principle of all trading. Why, I've made my everlasting fortune by haggling. Drat your picture, don't you know that the very pillars of financial success rest on counter-propositions?"

"Listen, relative, listen: I haven't said a word to you, have I?" Matt replied.

"No; but you looked it, and I'll not be looked at."

"All right, Cappy, I'll not look. But I can't help thinking."

"Thinking what?"

"That it's about time you quit talking about retiring—and retired!"



CHAPTER XLVI



With this Parthian shot Matt himself retired, leaving Cappy to shiver and bow his head on his breast; in which position he remained motionless for fully an hour.

"I guess the boy's right," he soliloquized finally. "I think I'd better retire, after pulling that kind of a deal twice in the same place. The pace is getting too swift for me, I think; I can't keep up... Well, I guess they've got the goods on me this time. Matt was certainly on the job twice, and I blocked him both times ... Oh, Lord! I'll never hear the last of this... By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, I've lost my punch! Matt didn't say so; but he thinks it. And I don't blame him a bit."

The door of Cappy's office opened and again the youth stood in the entrance. "Mr. Redell is calling; there's a gentleman with him," he announced.

"Tell 'em I'm busier'n a cranberry merchant," Cappy snarled. "And unless you're figuring on hunting a new job, my son, don't you come in here again today."

The youth retired. However, he knew from experience that Cappy Ricks never discharged anybody save for insubordination or rank incompetence; hence, he did not hesitate to disobey the old gentleman's edict.

"Mr. Redell says his business is very important," he announced, presenting himself once more at the door.

"All right! No rest for the weary. Show them in."

J. Augustus Redell entered, accompanied by no less a personage than the British Consul. Cappy greeted them without enthusiasm and bade them be seated.

"Well," J. Augustus Redell announced cheerily, "It's plain to be seen that Little Sunshine hasn't been round this office recently."

Cappy grunted.

"What's gone wrong, Cappy?"

"Everything! Been going wrong for years and I never realized it until this afternoon. Ah, Gus, my dear young friend, how I envy you your youth, your capacity to think, your golden dreams, your boundless energy, your ability to make two-dollar bills grow where one-dollar bills grew before, thus making an apparently barren prospect as verdant as a meadow in spring. But make the most of your opportunity, young feller! The day will come to you, as it has come to me, when everything you do will be done twenty minutes too late; when every dollar you make will be subject to a cash discount of one hundred per cent; when every competitor you held cheap will suddenly develop the luck of the devil, the brains of a Demosthenes, and the courage of a hog going to war."

"I should judge that you have recently suffered a great bereavement."

"I have, Augustus, I have. Through my indecision I have just lost a bank roll a greyhound couldn't have jumped over. Suppose it was a paper profit? I grieve just the same."

"Forget it, Cappy! Life is real, life is earnest, and you have a bank roll of real profits a giraffe couldn't reach the top of."

"Oh, it isn't the money, Gus. Money is only a vulgar symbol of my bereavement. The trouble is—I've lost my punch! I can't think, Gus; I can't act promptly. I'm out of touch with my times. I remind myself of nothing so much as the old rooster that suddenly discovered he had been elected to furnish the dinner the following Sunday. His hens cackled and called to him that they had found some worms, but he wouldn't pay any attention to them; just leaned up against the wire netting in the poultry yard and said to himself: 'Oh, hell! What's the use? Today an egg—tomorrow a feather duster!'"

"Don't be pessimistic, Cappy. Don't! It doesn't become you, and I don't believe a word you're telling me. You're still the old he-fox of the world; and I've come to you for help on a deal that's going to mean a whole lot of money to both of us if we can only put it through."

"I'm sorry, Gus, but I'm not interested. As a matter of fact, I've retired."

"Nonsense! Nonsense! I know where there's a beautiful ten-thousand- ton, net register, steel steamer to be bought for three hundred thousand dollars—"

Cappy Ricks threw out an arm and pressed his hand against Redell's mouth.

"Sh-h-h!" he warned. "Sh-h-h! Hush!"

With the agility of a man half his age Cappy ran to the door, bolted it on the inside and returned to his desk. He was rubbing his hands and his eyes were aglow with interest.

"What are you sh-h-h-ing about?" Redell demanded.

"Matt Peasley and that cowardly Skinner. Not a word of this to them, Gus! Not—a—whisper!" And he winked one eye and twisted up the corner of his mouth knowingly. Mr. Redell nodded his promise and Cappy went on: "Now Gus, my dear young friend, start in at the beginning and tell me everything. I assume, of course, that this is real business and not another of your jokes on the old man. Word of honor, Gus?"

"Word of honor, Cappy."

"All right; blaze away! Come, come! What have you got to offer?"

"I have a condition and I offer you a half interest in it if you can suggest a plan to circumvent His Royal Highness, Kaiser Wilhelm—"

"Hum-m-m! Enough!" Cappy interrupted, and turned to the British Consul: "This is an international affair, eh? See if I don't state the proposition in a nutshell—if I may be pardoned the bromide. This steamer is a German, and the proposition is to get her under the American flag so firmly that she'll stay there; then, I suppose, we're to charter her to the British Government, or one of Britain's allies—Russia, for instance."

J. Augustus Redell and the British Consul exchanged admiring winks.

"What did I tell you, Mister Consul?" Redell declared triumphantly. "Mr. Ricks knows the story before we have told it. And yet he's complaining about the loss of his punch!"

Cappy looked slightly self-conscious; it was plain the compliment pleased him.

"Well, Gus, my boy," he answered, "I have lost my punch, though at that I'm not exactly a pork-and-beaner. Hum-m-m! Ahem! Harumph-h-h! This must be a hard order to fill. Mister Consul, when Gus Redell has to come to me for help. That son of a gun can move faster and go through more obstacles than quicksilver. Gus, what's gone wrong with you? Have you lost your punch too? And at your age?"

"Looks like it, Cappy. I've thought and thought until I'm desperate, and not an idea worth while has presented itself. That's why I've come to you."

"Well, I don't guarantee a cure, my boy. But I'll say this much: If you and I can't put this thing over, then it just isn't put-overable. Fire away, Gus!"

"Have you ever heard of the steamer Bavarian?"

"Of course! She belongs to Adolph Koenitz and flies the German flag. Since the war started she's been interned down in Mission Bay."

Redell nodded.

"Adolph Koenitz never became an American citizen, despite the fact that he had lived in San Francisco twenty years and operated three steamers out of this port. He was a reserve officer in the German Navy; and when the war broke out he interned his ships, placed his entire estate in his wife's name and reported for duty. He perished in the Battle of Jutland, both his boys were killed at Verdun, and now his widow would like to sell the Bavarian and get some cash. She had a large income from an estate in Germany, but the war cut that off.

"Also, it appears that Koenitz was rather heavily involved, and the expense of maintaining those interned steamers, with their German crews aboard, has his widow badly worried; in fact, she has reached the point where she finds it necessary to sell one of the steamers in order to hang on to the other two. She has tried to raise a mortgage on the Bavarian, but nobody cares to loan money on an interned German steamer."

"Naturally," Cappy replied sarcastically. "And I'm amazed that you should consider me boob enough to consider seriously buying the same steamer outright! Gus, I'd have about as much use for that steamer as I would have for a tail. Even if I should buy her now, and not use her until the war is over, I should be risking my money; for the German Government, if you remember, issued an order in 1915 forbidding its subjects to sell their interned ships without the consent of the said government. And, even if Mrs. Koenitz can procure the Kaiser's consent, I fail to see the wisdom of tying up three hundred thousand dollars in an idle investment."

"Ah, but under those circumstances she wouldn't be an idle investment."

"Yes, she would, my boy. Great Britain issued an Order in Council in 1914 notifying all neutral nations that she would not sanction the transfer of registry of any German vessel. A few daring devils took a chance—and what happened? The British Navy overhauled the ships at sea and took them into a British port where a British prize court confiscated them. There is the case of the Mazatlan, for instance. She was German owned and flew the German flag; her owner put her under the Mexican flag, and subsequently she was sold at a bargain to one of our neighbors, who put her under American registry. Do you know where the Mazatlan is now? Well, I'll tell you: She's freighting war munitions for Johnny Bull—and our optimistic neighbor isn't collecting the freight money either."

"Quite true, Mr. Ricks; quite true—in ordinary cases," the Consul told him smilingly.

"By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet! I smell a mouse. Hum-m-m! That simplifies matters. We-l-l! If you are in position, Mister Consul, to give me your word of honor as a gentleman and an officer of your king that the British Navy will turn its blind side to the Bavarian when she puts to sea, I'll buy the Bavarian so fast it'll make your head swim. In return for this favor, of course, I am to charter the ship at the going rates to—"

"Our ally, the Russian Government, Mr. Ricks. And you have my word of honor, which is all I can give you; for a deal like this, as you know, cannot be made in writing. I have had the matter up with the Admiralty, however, and permission has been granted me to give the verbal assurance of my government."

"I'll make a finger bet with your government, Mister Consul. As for Kaiser Bill's consent to the transfer—heraus mit 'em! We'll get along without that. Wilhelm doesn't cut much ice with me these days and I'm willing to wager the price of the Bavarian that such ice as he does cut will blame soon melt. Gus, you say Mrs. Koenitz wants to sell?"

"Yes."

"And she doesn't care who buys?"

"Not a particle! She's sore on the Kaiser; it's been thumbs down on Wilhelm ever since Adolph and the boys lost the number of their mess. She says to me: 'Herr Riddle, dot Kaiser orders war like I order beer!' However, there's an 'if' to the transfer. While we know the British Navy will not bother us should we buy the steamer, still enthusiastic Britishers all over the world will have their eyes on the Bavarian and clamor for her capture. Great Britain cannot publicly—or, at least, obviously—make any exceptions to her Order in Council, and we'll have to mess up that steamer's title and nativity to save John Bull's social standing. We must make a bluff at deceiving him. If we can show some sort of legal transfer to another flag J. B. can play blindman's buff with dignity and honor; otherwise nix!"

Cappy Ricks' eyes sought the ceiling.

"What have I done to deserve this?" he demanded of an invisible Presence. "Why am I afflicted thus? Job had his boils; but you and I, Augustus, are covered with a financial rash, bleeding at every pore, and with no relief in sight."

"I told you this was a tough one, Cappy. I've pondered the situation until my brain is addled like a last year's nest egg, and finally I've come to you as a last resort. If you can't cook up an airtight scheme, then there is no help; and I'm going to forget the Bavarian and attend to some business more profitable and less debilitating."

"There must be an out, Gus. It's too good a thing to abandon. Suppose you and the Consul go away and give me time to concentrate my thoughts on this problem. It's a holy terror; but—Well, I've seen dogs almost as sick as this one cured."

"God bless you!" Mr. Redell murmured fervently. "Consul, let us depart and leave Mr. Ricks to himself. Call me up, Cappy, when you see a ray of light. Two heads are better than one, you know."



CHAPTER XLVII



When his visitors had gone Cappy Ricks gave orders that he was not to be disturbed on any pretext whatever. Then he locked himself in, swung his legs to the top of his desk, slid low in his chair until he rested on his spine, bowed his head on his breast and closed his eyes. The battle was on.

One hour later J. Augustus Redell entered breathlessly in response to a telephonic invitation from Cappy.

"Gus," the latter began, "am I right in assuming that you possess a reasonable amount of influence with that hair-trigger partner of yours, Live Wire Luiz?" Redell nodded. "And is Luiz absolutely trustworthy? Will he stay put and keep his mouth closed?"

"He is my partner, Cappy. He's mercurial, but a gentleman. I'd trust him with my life, and I always trust him with my bank roll. He requires no watching."

"Good! Gus, send Live Wire Luiz down to Guaymas and have him incorporate the North and South American Steamship Company there, under the extremely flexible and evershifting laws of the Republic of Mexico. Luiz is a Peruvian and speaks Spanish, and knows the Mexican temperament. He can easily procure three Mexicans to act as a dummy board of directors; his own name, of course, for obvious reasons, must never appear in connection with this company. A thousand dollars ought to cover this Mexican expense."

"Consider that point attended to, Cappy."

"Fine! Now then, when this corporate vehicle is in running order and has opened an office in Guaymas, Live Wire Luiz will write your company, The West Coast Trading Company, saying that his company has been referred to you by some mutual friends in Guaymas. Of course Luiz doesn't sign this letter. It is signed by the North and South American Steamship Company, per the dummy secretary or president. The letter goes on to say that the latter company is in the market for a steamer, the general specifications of which, singularly enough, fit the Bavarian. The vessel is to be used for transporting troops up and down the west coast of Mexico and for freighting munitions from Japan; and in a delicate way it might be hinted that the de facto Mexican Government is the real buyer. A commission of five per cent is offered you for buying the vessel for them, said commission to be split fifty-fifty with the North and South American Steamship Company; this being the Mexican way of doing business, as you know."

"Consider that matter attended to also. I'll write the letter myself before Luiz starts for Guaymas, so I'll be certain the job will be done exactly right."

"As soon as you receive this letter you get busy and wire the North and South American Steamship Company that you have just the vessel they want, price three hundred thousand dollars. Live Wire Luiz will then cause a reply to that telegram to be sent, advising you that his clients would not balk at paying half a million! That, of course, is hint enough for you. Right away you see the old Mexican graft sticking out, and you say to yourself, 'Why not?' And you do! You reply to that telegram, saying you erred when naming the price in your first telegram; that it is five hundred thousand instead of three. Then you come down to me and I hand you three hundred thousand dollars in currency; for in such a transaction as this, checks, with their indorsements, provide a trail that may prove embarrassing. You take that money and deposit it in escrow in any local bank against a bill of sale of the Bavarian from Mrs. Koenitz to the North and South American Steamship Company, of Guaymas, Mexico. Before doing so, however, have Mrs. Koenitz place the vessel under Mexican registry. She can do that through the Mexican Consul for the de facto government; and when the bill of sale is turned over to you, record it promptly with the Mexican Consul. Later you will record it in Mexico.

"The vessel is now the property of the North and South American Steamship Company; and the North and South American Steamship Company is the property of Cappy Ricks and the West Coast Trading Company, per Senor Felipe Luiz Almeida. But we must never admit this. To have the North and South American Steamship Company transfer the vessel to us would be very coarse work indeed; so we must avoid that."

"How?"

"I'll get to that presently. The steamer is now in our possession, and you will already have notified her German skipper and crew to hunt a new residence. You will then put an American skipper in charge and ship American engineers and a crew of parrakeets; and on the very day the sale is consummated, just before the customhouse closes, have the skipper clear the vessel for Guaymas and put to sea that night. Since she carries no cargo the collector of the port will not stop you; the risk of going to sea is all our own—if we care to take it.

"The next day the newspaper boys will be hot on the trail. An interned German merchantman has suddenly transferred to Mexican registry and put to sea! Now! Inquiry at the customhouse and at the Mexican consulate shows that the vessel has been sold, and the trail leads straight to the office of the West Coast Trading Company. You are interviewed—and say nothing; and that day, when I appear on 'Change, these baffled journalists drive me into a corner and ask me what I think about it. And I'll tell them it's just another case of the lowly Mexican peon being hornswoggled by the foxy Americano. The Mexicans wanted a ship and asked the American to buy one for them. He did—only he forgot to tell them she was a German. She was such a good buy they snapped her up without asking questions, though in all probability the poor devils had no knowledge of Kaiser Wilhelm's edict that no German ships shall be sold without the consent of the German Government. I will say that it looks to me as if the ancient rule of caveat emptor applied, and that the Mexicans are stung and have no comeback. Then, again, it may be a shrewd German trick to put something over.

"Well, they make a snorting story out of what I give them; the frau's friends read it and think she's done something smart. Nobody feels sorry for a Mexican. Next morning you come out with a blast of righteous indignation and admit that you cannot or will not deny that the vessel was sold to parties representing the de facto Mexican Government. You deny, however, that you sold them a pig in a poke; and the papers print a copy of your letter to the North and South American Steamship Company specifically advising them that the vessel was a German and liable to prove an embarrassment. This, of course, clears you, and the blame for the graft is placed where it belongs—on the shoulders of the North and South American Steamship Company, which has deliberately stung the de facto government!"

"Cappy," said J. Augustus Redell admiringly, "you're immense!"

"I accept the nomination. Upon her arrival in Guaymas the Bavarian's name is changed to La Golondrina, or Sobre las Olas, or Manana, or Poco Tiempo—whatever's right. I think we may safely gamble that she will arrive in Guaymas in the light of what the British Consul told us; and, in view of her departure unannounced, no British warship on the West Coast can get so far north as Guaymas in time to intercept her.

"Well, having changed her name, she picks up a general cargo and comes back to San Francisco, where she goes on dry dock and is cleaned and painted, has her gear overhauled, fills up with fuel oil and stores, and—but that's enough. Now comes the blow-off.

"Strange to relate, you haven't received a cent of that five-per-cent commission due you from the North and South American Steamship Company for buying the Bavarian for them. The issue is in dispute. They claim you are not entitled to any commission, because you stung them with a German vessel; and you claim you told them she was a German, but that they needed her so badly they would take a chance. Also, the fact that she went to sea that time in such a hurry, and forgot to pay for her fuel oil and stores, looks rather suspicious; so, when the vessel comes off dry dock, with about ten thousand dollars' worth of bills against her, you decide to protect your claim for the commission—and, by the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, Gus, you libel her! The news breaks into the papers, and next day every creditor of the ship files a libel on her, also, to protect his claim. Gus, she'll have so many plasters on her she'll look like a German coming home from the war."

J. Augustus Redell leaped from his chair and picked little Cappy Ricks up in his arms and hugged him.

"Oh, Cappy! Cappy!" he yelled. "You're the shadow of a rock in a weary land—a cup of cool water in the suburbs of hell!"

"Are you game?" Cappy gurgled.

"Does a cat eat liver? Cappy, you've solved the problem! Naturally the North and South American Steamship Company does not directly or indirectly make any attempt to lift these libels and get the vessel to sea. Why? I'll tell you—or, rather, I'll tell the newspaper boys and they'll tell everybody. It will appear that as soon as the Mexican Consul here got an inkling of the apparent plan of the North and South American Steamship Company, of Guaymas, to sting Don Venustiano Carranza by slipping him a steamer with a clouded title, he must have wired Don Venustiano to round up the directors of the said company and give them the ley fuga. Fortunately for these culprits, however, they got next in time to get out from under. Mounting swift steeds, the entire board of directors fled north and east, never pausing until they had joined Pancho Villa; and we learn from some Border gossips that all three subsequently were killed in action. But, before leaving Guaymas, they left their tangled steamship affairs in the hands of their attorney—"

"Nothing doing, Gus! They left their tangled steamship affairs in the hands of my attorney, and they gave him an absolute, ironclad, airtight power of attorney to sell the ship, receive and receipt for all money due the company, and so on, and so on, ad libitum, ad infinitum; said power of attorney being nonrevocable for five years."

"Great stuff! In due course the libelants sue in the United States District Court; your attorney appears for the defendants and confesses judgment, but pleads for a ten-day stay of execution until he can raise a mortgage on the vessel. But, strange to relate, the ten-day stay expires and the judgments against the steamer are not paid; so the judge of the United States District Court orders the steamer sold at public auction on the floor of the Merchants' Exchange to the highest bidder, to satisfy the claims of the creditors. Thirty days later the United States Marshal conducts the sale, and a gentleman named Cappy Ricks buys her in. The United States Marshal gives the said Ricks a bill of sale for her, which the said Ricks thereupon records in the United States Customhouse, and—"

"Und Hoch der Kaiser! Und Hoch der John J. Bull! We've finally got that clear American title we've been looking for. It makes no difference what the nationality of a vessel is; the minute she enters the territorial waters of the United States of America she is amenable to the laws of the United States of America, one of which reads thusly: 'Thou shalt pay thy bills; and if thou dost not, then poco tiempo thou shalt be made to pay them, even unto the seizure and sale of thy ship.' And with the purchase of that ship, under an order of sale issued by the United States District Court, she becomes a United States ship; we register her as such; and the United States simply has to stand back of the bill of sale it gave us. Germany knows that; England knows it; Austria knows it; and from the jackstaff of the late Bavarian, now renamed the Alden M. Peasley, in honor of my first grandson, there floats—"

J. Augustus Redell raised his index finger, enjoining silence:

"Now then! One, two, three! Down, left, up!

"O-ho, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so-ho pro-houdly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?"

Cappy Ricks sprang to attention. Presently, through the partition, his cracked old voice reached Mr. Skinner:

"Then conquer we must, when our cause is so just; And this be our motto: 'May we nev-er go bust!'"

"What's doing here?" Mr. Skinner demanded, banging at the door, which was locked.

"Go way back and sit down!" Cappy shrilled. "I'll show you and Matt Peasley where to head in, yet—see if I don't!"



CHAPTER XLVIII



Cappy Ricks and J. Augustus Redell arrived at the Merchants' Exchange promptly at one o'clock on the date of the sale of the S. S. General Carranza, as the Bavarian was now called. Just inside the door they paused and looked at each other.

"Whe-e-e-ew!" murmured Cappy Ricks. "All the shipping men in the world are here to bid on our property, Gus."

Mr. Redell whistled softly. "This," he said, "will be some auction!"

Cappy chuckled.

"There is only one thing that a shipping man in this country has more respect for than an Order in Council—and that is an Order in the United States District Court!"

"Naturally. It's backed up by our army and navy."

"By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, somebody's sporting blood is going to be tested today; and something tells, me, Augustus, my dear young friend, that it's going to be Matt Peasley's."

"What makes you think so, Cappy?"

Again Cappy chuckled.

"Having used German methods to bring about this auction sale," he confessed, "I concluded to steal a little more of this Teutonic stuff; so I established a system of espionage in Skinner's office and another in Matt Peasley's. Gus, I got a lot of low-down information on those two young pups; they're trying to slip something over on the old dog."

"Well, they'll never teach him any new tricks, Cappy."

"You know it! I observe that, as usual, Jim Searles will conduct the auction. He's climbing up on the block now, and, by the Toenails of Moses, Matt Peasley is on the job! Look, Gus! You can see his black head sticking up out of the heart of the riot."

As Cappy and Redell joined the crowd Jim Searles, by acclamation the auctioneer of the Port of San Francisco, rapped smartly with his little gavel, and a tense silence settled over the crowd.

"This," Mr. Searles announced, "will be a fight to a finish, winner take all. In accordance with an order of the United States District Court I am about to sell, at public auction, to the highest bidder, the Mexican Steamship General Carranza, ex-German Steamship Bavarian, to satisfy the following judgments: Mr. J. Augustus Redell—"

"Cut it out!" roared Matt Peasley. "We've all read the list of creditors, and you're only gumming up the game. Come down to business Jim."

"Good boy, Peasley! Sure! Cut it out, Jim! Get busy!" A dozen voices seconded Captain Matt Peasley's motion and Jim Searles rapped for order.

"How much am I offered?" he cried.

"One million dollars!" roared Matt Peasley.

On the fringe of the eager crowd Cappy Ricks leaned up against his friend Redell and commenced to laugh.

"The young scoundrel!" he chortled. "He never said a word to me about this auction; he was afraid I'd butt in and block his purchase; so, for his impudence, I'll teach him a lesson he'll never forget. Bid, Gus! Bet 'em as high as a hound's back."

"Captain Matt Peasley, representing the Blue Star Navigation Company, bids one million dollars. Chicken feed! Won't some real sport please tilt the ante?" Jim Searles pleaded. "Don't waste my time, gentlemen. It's valuable. Let's get this thing over and go back to our offices."

"One million five hundred thousand!" called J. Augustus Redell.

"I called for a sport and drew a piker," Jim Searles retorted. "Mr. J. Augustus Redell, of the West Coast Trading Company, bids a million and a half."

Young Dalton Mann, representing the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, raised his hand and snapped his fingers at the auctioneer.

"And a hundred thousand!" he shouted.

"And a hundred thousand!" Matt Peasley retorted.

"And fifty thousand!" Mann flung back at him.

Matt Peasley eyed his antagonist belligerently.

"That's doing very well for a young fellow," Searles complimented the last bidder. "Skipper Peasley, are you going to let this landlubber outgame you? He has bid a million and three-quarters. Think of the present high freight rates and speak up, or remain forever silent."

The bidding had so suddenly and by such prodigious bounds reached the elimination point that every piker present was afraid to open his mouth in the presence of these plungers. Matt Peasley licked his lips and glanced round rather helplessly. He knew he had about reached the limit of his bidding, but he suspected that Mann had reached his also.

"And ten thousand!" he shouted desperately.

"Cheap stuff! Cheap stuff!" the crowd jeered good-naturedly.

Cappy Ricks nudged J. Augustus Redell as Mann waved his hand in token of surrender. "One million seven hundred and sixty thousand I am offered," the auctioneer intoned. "Any further bids?" He waited a full minute; then resorted to three minutes of cajolery, but in vain. There were no more bids.

Jim Searles raised his hammer.

"Going—once!" he called—and waited. "Going—twice!" Another pause. "Going—"

"Two million dollars!" cried J. Augustus Redell; and a sigh went up from the excited onlookers.

"Ah! Mr. Redell is a sport, after all! Two million, flat!" Searles looked down on Matt Peasley. "Die, dog, or eat the meat ax!" he warned the unhappy young man.

"Let him have her," Matt growled; and, very red of face, he commenced to shoulder his way through the crowd.

"Beat it, Cappy; he's coming!" Redell warned the president emeritus.

Cappy Ricks, dodging round the flank of the crowd, fled through the side entrance of the Merchants' Exchange; and he was tranquilly smoking a cigar in his private office when Matt Peasley dropped in on him an hour later. Cappy eyed him coldly.

"Is Skinner back from luncheon?" he demanded. Matt nodded. "Tell him to come in here. I want to see him," Cappy continued ominously. "And you might stick round yourself."

Mr. Skinner made his appearance.



"Close the door," Cappy commanded.

Mr. Skinner looked a little startled and surprised, but promptly closed the door.

"You wanted to see me, Mr. Ricks?" he queried.

Cappy Ricks edged forward until he was seated on the extreme edge of his chair. Then he rested a hand on each knee, bent his head, and glared at the unhappy Skinner over the rims of his glasses. After thirty seconds of this scrutiny he turned to his son-in-law.

"Well," he said, "I hear you've been attending an auction sale and making a star-spangled monkey of yourself bidding a million seven hundred and sixty thousand dollars on that Mexican steamer. Matt, have you taken leave of your senses?"

"No, sir—not quite; but Gus Redell has. He bought her in for two million dollars. Of course he was acting for somebody else, because every cent he has is working overtime in the West Coast Trading Company."

"Oh!" Cappy murmured. "Then you didn't get her, after all?"

"No, sir! So perhaps you'd better not holler until you're hit." Matt sighed. "By Neptune," he declared, "I'd give a cooky to know the name of the crazy man who paid two million dollars for that steamer!"

"Behold the lunatic, Matt! Grandpa Ricks, in his second childhood! Gus Redell was bidding for me, sonny."

Matt Peasley sat down rather limply and stared at the president emeritus.

"Cappy," he said presently, "you sent a boy to do a man's work. I had the boat bought for a million seven hundred and sixty thousand! For heaven's sake, why didn't you tell me you wanted her? And I would have laid off. For the love of heaven, why did you go bidding against me?"

"Why didn't you tell me you wanted her, you big simp?" Cappy retorted. "You never said a word to me; and naturally Redell thought you were acting for somebody else. He had orders from me to get her and damn the cost—and he fulfilled his orders."

"A comedy of errors, truly!" Mr. Skinner observed witheringly.

Matt Peasley raised his huge arms and clenched his great fists in agony.

"Oh, Cappy! Cappy!" he pleaded. "Won't you please retire? You're just raising hell with the organization!"

"All right, Matt; I'll retire. But, before I do, I'm going to give Skinner a piece of my mind. Skinner, what the devil do you mean by going up to the Marine National Bank and borrowing a million dollars on the credit of the Ricks Lumber Company? I admit I have given you entire charge of the lumber end, and you were quite within your rights when you negotiated the loan and signed the note as president; but how did it happen that you didn't consult with the old man, if only as a matter of common courtesy?"

"I-I-that is, I-well, I didn't mean to be discourteous, Mr. Ricks. Oh, I wouldn't have you think, sir—"

"No; you'd have me be a dummy if you could. Why, you almost put the skids under me; because, when I went up to the Marine National to make a little personal loan in a spirit of preparedness, I discovered that the loan you had been given on my assets had jazzed my personal credit all to glory! I used to be able to borrow a million dollars on my bare note; but I'll be shot if they didn't make me dig up a lot of collateral this time! Skinner, I wouldn't have thought that of you. After trusting you as I have done for a quarter of a century, to find you giving me the double-cross just about breaks my heart. Great Godfrey, Skinner, how could you be so false to me? I expect that sort of thing from Matt—those one loves the best always swat one; but from you—Skinner, I don't know what prevents me from demanding your resignation here and now, unless it be because of your previous splendid character and loyal service."

"Oh, Mr. Ricks, Mr. Ricks!" Poor Skinner held up his hands appealingly and commenced to weep. "Please do not think ill of me. I swear—"

"You loaned the Ricks Lumber Logging Company's million dollars to Matt Peasley to help buy that steamer for the Blue Star Navigation Company; and he, the son of a pirate, went to work and borrowed it from you, well knowing he had no business to do so. What are you paying the Marine National for that money?"

"Five per cent," Skinner sniffled, for his heart was broken.

"What are you soaking the Blue Star Navigation Company for it?"

"Six," Skinner confessed miserably.

"That's all right, Skinner, my boy. Cheer up! I forgive you. That little profit of one per cent saves your bacon, boy. I guess there's some good left in you still; and I'm happy to have this evidence that, though I own both companies, you have not forgotten you are responsible for the profit-and-loss account of one of them, and Matt Peasley for the other. You did quite right to claim that one per cent jerk from Matt. Business is business!"

"Yes, you bet it is!" Matt Peasley struck in. "And I want you to lay off on Skinner, because what he did was done in fear and trembling, and under duress. We were both afraid you'd block the purchase; so we agreed to keep our plans secret from you, because—Well, somehow I did want that bully big boat the very worst way."

"And that's exactly the way you set about getting her, Matthew. However, you're young—you don't know any better; so I forgive you. Of course I realized you wanted, that steamer, boy. I knew your heart was set on seeing our house flag floating from her mainstruck; so I—Well, I just thought I'd get her for you, to sort of square myself for those two bonehead plays I pulled earlier in the year."

"Oh, but you shouldn't have paid two millions for her, Cappy! Business is one thing and sentiment is another."

"Why, I didn't pay any such price for her! Originally I bought her, as a German, for three hundred thousand dollars; in addition to that I've spent about ten thousand dollars improving her, and maybe five thousand more fussing up the trail of my operations so no smart secret-service operative could come round and hang something on me." He reached into his coat pocket and drew forth the United States Marshal's bill of sale. "Here, sonny," he announced, "is your Uncle Sam's certificate of title. Hustle up to the customhouse and get it recorded; then make out a bill of sale for a one-third interest to the West Coast Trading Company and record that also. Then change her name to Alden M. Peasley, in honor of your first-born, and put her under these two flags."

He jerked open a drawer in the desk and brought forth a bright new edition of Old Glory, followed by the familiar white muslin burgee with the blue star.

"Skinner!"

"Yes, Mr. Ricks."

"The United States Marshal has paid all the debts of the Alden M. Peasley, and this afternoon he'll send his check for the proceeds of the sale still remaining in his hands to my lawyer, who holds a most ungodly power of attorney from that dummy Guaymas corporation Live Wire Luiz organized to buy the ship for us. Our attorney will cash that check and send the cash down to you. Please bank it to my credit and take up that note I gave the Marine National; then get the securities I hocked and tuck them back in my safe-deposit vault. As for the interest at five per cent, which the Ricks Lumber & Logging Company will have to pay on that million you borrowed to help Matt Peasley hornswoggle father, you just charge that to your personal account as a penance for your sins. As for the six per cent you pay the Ricks Lumber & Logging Company for the money loaned your Blue Star Navigation Company, Matt Peasley, just charge that to your personal account as a penance for your sins."

Both culprits nodded dazedly.

"Now," Cappy continued, "I'll tell you something else: The Alden M. Peasley belongs to the West Coast Trading Company and Alden P. Ricks; they own one-third for bringing the deal to my attention and furnishing some labor, and I own two-thirds, or the lion's share, for doing a lion's work—to wit, putting up the cash and promoting the deal to a clean title. Consequently, though you two boys own a nice little block of stock in the Blue Star Navigation Company, you don't own a red cent in the Alden M. Peasley, because she doesn't belong to the Blue Star Navigation Company, but to the president emeritus thereof. However, as I am about to retire for keeps this time, I'll tell you what I purpose doing with my two-thirds of the Alden M. Peasley: Skinner, my dear boy, I kidded you into tears. Bless you, boy, it broke your heart when you thought your old boss figured you'd quit being Faithful Fido, didn't it? Skinner, loyalty like yours is very, very precious; and your affection is—er—Skinner, you human icicle, you can't bluff me! I'm on to you, young feller! Matt, you prepare a deed of gift for one-half of my two-thirds interest to Skinner, and take the other half for yourself; and when the Alden M. Peasley has earned what I put into her, credit my account with it. After that, you and Skinner and Gus Redell and Live Wire Luiz can collect the dividends."

"Oh, Mr. Ricks! This is too much," Skinner began.

"Tut, tut, sir! Not a peep out of you, sir! How dare you argue with me? Now just one word more before you fellers go: The next time you boys go bidding on a ship at auction, take a leaf out of Cappy Ricks' book and bid against yourself! You can always scare the other fellows off that way; the sky is the limit—and you're bound to get your money back. So you should Ish ka bibble.

"Now you two young freshies go back to your desks and try to learn humility. Thus endeth the first lesson, my children."

Matt Peasley came close to Cappy and put his big arm round the little old man.

"Cappy," he whispered, "please don't retire!"

"All right, son," Cappy answered; "but get that infernal cry-baby, Skinner, out of my office. He's breaking my heart."

If J. Augustus Redell had been content to sue for peace following his deal with Cappy in Australian wheat, all would have been well for that young man. Alas! As we have already stated, he was young—and there is an old saying to the effect that youth must be served. J. Augustus Redell, like Oliver Twist, desired more. His triumph over Cappy in the wheat deal merely whetted his desire for more of the Ricks blood, and in the end the ingenious rascal evolved a plan for making Cappy the laughing stock of the Bilgewater Club for a month of Sundays.



CHAPTER XLIX



MONSIEUR LE CAPITAINE RICKS

Cappy Ricks entered his office at the unheard-of hour of eight- thirty. On his way to his sanctum at the end of the long suite of offices Cappy paused in the lair of Mr. Skinner, who looked up, amazed.

"Hello!" he saluted the president emeritus. "What brings you down on the job so early this morning, Mr. Ricks?"

"I've got a hen on," Cappy replied briskly. He glanced at Skinner and rubbed his hands together. "Skinner, my dear boy," he continued, "this is a one-horse concern."

"Three sawmills with a combined output of a million feet a day on a ten-hour shift—not to mention a billion feet of stumpage—isn't my idea of a one-horse concern," Mr. Skinner retorted with some asperity.

"Tut, tut, Skinner! I'm not referring to the lumber end at all; so don't get touchy. I'm referring to the Blue Star Navigation Company. It's a dinky proposition.

"Forty-two vessels—windjammers, steam schooners and foreign-going freighters—" began Mr. Skinner; but Cappy cut him short:

"Foreign-going grandmothers! We've got the Narcissus and the Tillicum."

"How about my boat—the John P. Skinner?"

"Oh, yes! That one we scraped up off the bottom of Papeete Harbor," Cappy answered maliciously. "Well, that makes three; and really the Skinner and the Narcissus are the only vessels built to go foreign. Remember, Skinner, we built the Tillicum, for the coast-wise lumber trade, even though she's so big our competitors thought when we launched her we were crazy to build such a whale for that trade."

"Well, Mr. Ricks?"

"We ought to have more big bottoms, Skinner. We'll have hell- cracking freight rates during the war and for a long time thereafter—and here we sit round like a lot of dubs, too conservative to help ourselves to the gravy. Why, you and Matt Peasley ought to be knitting socks in an old ladies' home, for all the progressiveness you're displaying."

"I am not in charge of the shipping end, Mr. Ricks."

"No; but you've got a tongue in your head, haven't you? You were practically in charge of the Blue Star for more than six months— during the entire period Matt was at sea in the Retriever and we thought he was a goner. Why, dog-gone you, Skinner, even when you thought Matt was dead you didn't suggest increasing the fleet. I'm surprised, Skinner, my boy, that in my old age, after gathering a lot of young fellows round me to carry on the business, I've still got to be the bell mare!"

Mr. Skinner had nothing to say to this; if he had it is doubtful whether he would have said it, for he had been too long with Cappy Ricks not to know the signs when the old gentleman took the bit in his teeth and declared for a new deal.

"I'm going into my office to do some tall thinking, Skinner," Cappy continued. "Remember! No visitors until I've threshed this whole business out to my satisfaction. I'm not in to anybody."

Cappy retired to his office, sat down on his spine in his upholstered swivel chair, swung his thin old shanks to the top of his desk, bowed his head on his breast, and closed his eyes. Scarcely had he done so when the door opened and Matt Peasley thrust his head in.

"Well, Matt?" Cappy queried without opening his eyes.

"I have an offer of forty thousand dollars for our old bark Altair, Cappy. What do you think we ought to do?"

"Take it!" Cappy shrilled. "You jibbering jackdaw! Grab it! She's been a failure since the day I built her; never balanced, always burying her nose in the seas, and drowning a sailor about once a year. If we keep that ship much longer she'll sail herself under some day and we'll be out the forty thousand. Altair! Fancy name! Skinner got it out of Ben Hur. He'd been in the shipping game ten years then and hadn't learned that was the name of a star! We should have called her the Water Spaniel. Sell her, Matt, and we'll put the money into a steamer that can run foreign."

"If you can tell me where we can buy, even at three times her intrinsic value, a steamer that will run foreign, I'm willing to consider selling the Altair. Just at present she's earning big dividends; and until we can find a place to invest her selling price, the money will earn six per cent instead of sixty, as at present."

"Clear out and let me think!" Cappy commanded, and Matt Peasley retired to Mr. Skinner's office.

"Have you noticed the old gentleman lately?" he inquired of Skinner. "Ever since his grandson arrived grandpa has been paying attention to business."

"He's dissatisfied with his own and our efforts thus far. He thinks he's been a piker and that you and I are his first-assistant pikers. He has ships on the brain."

"He's getting pretty cocky," Matt agreed; "but, at that, I guess he has a license to be."

"I've been with him twenty-six—yes, twenty-seven—years; and I know him, Matt. He's cooking up something prodigious—and it will soon be done."

The door of Cappy's office opened and Cappy stood in the entrance.

"Skinner," he ordered, "get me a letter of credit for about twenty thousand dollars. I'm going travelling."

"Where?" Matt and Skinner queried in chorus.

"To Europe."

"You're not!" Matt Peasley declared. "You're liable to be torpedoed en route."

"I know, but then, too, I'm liable not to be; and if I am, why, I'm an old man, and I'll only be cheating the devil by a few years or a few months. Come in here, you two dead ones."

They followed him into his office.

"We need some steamers," Cappy announced. "Every shipyard in the United States that could build the kind of steamer we want is full up with contracts for the next three years; so I'm going to Norway or Sweden or Denmark, or some non-belligerent European country, and see whether I can't place some contracts there for a couple of real freighters. Then, too, I may be able to pick up good vessels over there at a reasonable price. Under the Emergency Shipping Act we can get them provisional American registry—and that's all we need. Before a great while Uncle Sam is going to turn his antiquated shipping laws inside out, and any foreign-built boats we may acquire now will be given the right to run in the coastwise trade also."

"See here, Cappy," Matt reminded the old man; "you're retired and I'm in charge of the destinies of the Blue Star Navigation Company. I don't want you working yourself to death."

"You mean you don't want me butting in. Nonsense! What's the use of having a grandson if a fellow doesn't hustle up something for the boy to sharpen his teeth on when he grows up? Here I've been living from day to day, just marking time on the road to eternity and figuring life wasn't worth while because the stock was going to die out with me. Up until recently I was content with a little old one-horse business; but now, by the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, boy, we've got to get out and shake a leg! Freighters! That's what we want. Big, well-decked tramps, flying the Stars and Stripes in every port on earth. Why, what kind of a nation are we getting to be, anyway? We're a passel of mollycoddles, asleep on the job. We haven't half enough ships to coal our navy. In the event of war it would take us a week to dig up ships enough to transport the New York Police Department. I tell you, Matt, when I'm gone you'll have to have something for that grandson of mine to do or he'll grow up into one of these idle-rich, ne'er-do-well, two-for-a-quarter dudes. You bet I've been doing a deal of thinking lately. We can't send that boy to college, and spoil him before he's twenty-five. We'll run that young man through high school; just about that time he'll begin to get snobbish and we'll take that out of him by sending him to sea as a cadet on one of our own ships. We'll teach him democracy—that's what we'll teach him. When he's twenty-one he'll be a skipper like his forebears and you'll be only about forty-six. Good Lord! To think of you two young fellows running my Blue Star ships—and not enough ships to keep you busy! Preposterous! I can't consider—Well, Hankins, my dear boy, what's troubling you?"

Mr. Hankins, the secretary, had entered.

"I wanted to see Mr. Skinner a moment. I'll wait. Didn't know you were busy."

And he started to retire. Cappy checked him: "Finish with Skinner, Hankins. He'll be in consultation here with Matt and me for an hour yet."

"I just wanted to know, Mr. Skinner, whether all those cablegrams to Captain Landry, of the Altair, are to be charged to general expense, Captain Landry's personal account, or to the Altair."

"It seems to me you should charge them to Captain Landry, Hankins," Mr. Skinner spoke up. "It isn't ship's business and it isn't Blue Star business. If he wants this office to cable him every day about his family—"

"Here! What's this you're talking about, Skinner?" Cappy interrupted.

"When Captain Landry sailed for Callao his wife didn't accompany him—"

"Lucky rascal! He told me he was expecting an heir."

"And he's still expecting that heir."

"Naturally," Mr. Hankins explained, "he's been anxious for news; and ever since his arrival in Callao he's cabled us every other day—latterly every day—asking whether the baby has been born, and whether it's a boy or a girl."

"A very pardonable human curiosity, my boy. Proceed."

"Unfortunately the baby appears to be held up on demurrage and I think we've spent at least fifty dollars cabling to Landry that the youngster has failed to report. I imagine the skipper has spent twice that sum inquiring for news—"

"Of course! It's his first baby, isn't it? You must allow for human nature."

"I thought we would—for the first half dozen cablegrams; but after it became a habit it appeared that Landry ought to pay for his fancies."

"He should," Mr. Skinner declared firmly. "Charge the cablegrams to Landry."

"Nothing doing!" piped Cappy. "Charge 'em to general expense. Dang you, Skinner, I despair of ever breaking you of that habit of operating on the cheap!"

"Oh, very well, sir—only the expense is getting to be quite an item."

"I'm just about to send him another cablegram," Mr. Hankins declared fretfully. "The Altair is due to sail from Callao and the baby is still unborn; it will be two months old, at least, before the skipper gets any further news."

"Let's see your cablegram," Cappy ordered, and Mr. Hankins passed it over. Cappy read it. "Holy suffering sailor!" he cried. "Why this concern isn't in the hands of a receiver is a mystery to me." He looked up at Mr. Hankins with blood in his eye. "Here you are, Hankins, trying to saddle a bill of expense on a poor, heartbroken, anxious, embryo parent-to-be. Knowing full well that he only makes a hundred and fifty dollars a month, you admit to an endeavor to stick him for fifty dollars' worth of cablegrams from this end, not to mention those from his end. If you had spent your time, sir, figuring out a way to cut down that cable expense, instead of discovering a rotten way to get rid of it—Why, look here! You can use your code book and save a couple of dollars."

"Code book!" Mr. Hankins protested indignantly. "Why, who ever heard of a code book for cabling on baby business?"

"Use your shipping code. Here; hand me that code book. There's bound to be something to fit the occasion—there always is. Hum-m-m! Ahem! Harumph-h-h! Let us see what we shall see under the head of cargoes; Loading! Discharging! Demurrage! Ahem! That won't do. He'd be liable to confuse it with the ship's business. Harumph-h-h! Arrivals. Now we have it. Landry has been asking of an expected arrival, hasn't he?" Cappy ran his index finger down the page. "Here you are, Hankins. Hum-m-m! Afilamos—meaning no new arrivals. Naturally Landry will say to himself: 'Well, for heaven's sake, when will that child arrive?' We should enlighten him on that point."

"We cannot."

"Very well, then. Say so. Here you are. Affumicata—meaning: We cannot guarantee time of arrival. Hankins, have you talked with Mrs. Landry's physician in order to get the latest ringside reports?"

"Yes, sir."

"What does he say?"

"Well, he says he thinks it will be twins, in a couple of days at the most."

"Good news! Here you are. Afilaba—meaning: Heavy arrivals expected shortly. Now then, Hankins, he'll want some news of his wife, won't he? How about her?"

"She went to the hospital this morning."

Cappy closed his eyes and pondered; then once more took up the code book. Followed a silence. Then:

"Bully! He'll understand perfectly, being a sailor. Desdoble— meaning: Is now in dry dock. And, of course, Landry will want to know whether his wife is in any danger. Danger! Danger! Ships are sometimes in danger. When? When they're wrecked, of course. Let us look under the head of wrecks... No; nothing seems to fill the bill. Wreck, wrecked, worse, writ, write, wrong—ah, I have it! Wohlgemuth— meaning: There is nothing wrong." He looked up at Mr. Hankins. "Now there's the kind of cablegram to send—even on baby business. Those four code words translated mean: No new arrivals; heavy arrivals expected shortly; is now in dry dock; there is nothing wrong. Literally translated it means: Baby not born yet; twins expected shortly; your wife now in hospital; everything lovely! I suppose, Hankins, you have carbon copies of all these cablegrams you've been sending?"

"Yes, sir."

"Code them all, so far as possible, and ascertain how much money you might have saved the Blue Star by the exercise of a little common sense; then charge the cablegrams, on the coded basis, to our general expense, and charge to your personal account the sum you might have saved by the exercise of the ingenuity and efficiency I have a right to expect of a man who draws down as fat a salary as you do."



CHAPTER L



Mr. Hankins withdrew, greatly crestfallen, and the despot of the Blue Star office turned to his trusted lieutenants.

"Well," he declared, "one after the other you have to come to the old man to be shown. I guess I've proved to you two boys this morning that I'm to be trusted with buying a few ships and letting contracts for a few more, haven't I?"

"I don't like the idea of Cappy Ricks on a steamer that's likely to be torpedoed. I don't want you to go to Europe alone—"

"I'm not going alone. Captain Mike Murphy, our new port captain, is going with me. I wouldn't think of buying a steamer unless that splendid fellow O.K.'d the hull. And Terry Reardon, our new port engineer, will accompany me also. Terry has to O.K. the engines. Between the three of us, it's going to take a smart trader to sell us any junk, I'm telling you!"

"I ought to go with you," Matt suggested.

"You have your work at home, attending to the fleet. It isn't much of a fleet, I'll admit; but such as it is it requires some attention. I'll be the chief scout of this organization and see whether I can't rustle up some major-league vessels from some of those bush-league European owners."

"I've had a fine time getting good men to take their places in the Narcissus since you promoted Mike and Terry in my absence!" Matt complained. "Mike and Terry know her well—and she's such a big brute to handle."

"Where is the Narcissus, by the way?"

"Loading nitrate at Tocopilla and Antofagasta, Chile. This is her last voyage under the old charter."

"Got any new business in sight for her?"

"I won't have the slightest difficulty getting another nitrate charter and at a rate double what she's been getting."

"Every vessel taken off the nitrate run stiffens the freight rate in these days, when they have to have so much nitrate in the manufacture of war munitions," the astute Cappy declared. "If I were you, Matt, I'd find her a good outside cargo or two, and then slip her back in the nitrate business again. Freights may have advanced in the interim."

"I have a mighty profitable cargo offered me this morning, Cappy. An agent of the British Government called on me and offered a whopping price for carrying a cargo of mules and horses from Galveston to Havre. I think I shall turn the proposition down. It's too dangerous, Cappy."

"You mean we might have our ship blown up by a German submarine?"

Matt nodded.

"Well, we'd collect our freight in advance, wouldn't we? And the British Government will guarantee to reimburse us if the ship is lost, will it not? Well, then, where's the risk?"

"There's the danger to the crew."

"Any man that goes to sea knows he has to take a chance. Bet you Mike Murphy could take that cargo of livestock across and bring another cargo back. He's luckier than a cross-eyed coon. And another thing, Matt: If you accept that business we can kill two birds with one stone—yes, three—because Mike and Terry and I will cross over on the Narcissus and save the price of transportation from here to New York, and from New York to Liverpool. Then, while the Narcissus is discharging and taking on another cargo, we'll go scouting for available steamers."

"It might be done, though I hate to think of it Cappy. If we lose the vessel they'll pay us a million and a half for her, of course—and she cost us less than three hundred thousand a year ago. And, as you say, we'll collect the freight in advance. They're very anxious to get the Narcissus. She's a whopping big boat, and that's the kind of a vessel they need for a horse transport."

"Yes; and, by the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, it will be a bully vacation, and a bully vacation is something I haven't had since the night of the big wind in Ireland. Moreover, I combine business with pleasure, which is always desirable; and, if that isn't excuse enough, I want to tell you it's cheaper to travel dead-head on our own boats than to pay for three round-trip tickets to Europe on a Cunard liner."

"But suppose a German submarine—"

"Matt, all my life I've played a quiet, safe, sane, conservative game. I've always longed for adventure and never had it. Why, just consider a moment what a tiresome thing life would be were it not for the prospect of death at any moment! That's all that keeps us hustling, my boy—trying to put over a winning run before the game is called on account of darkness. Hell's bells! Don't try to scare me with a sheet and the rattle of old bones. Suppose they do blow us up? We don't lose a dollar; in fact, we make money—and we can take to the boats, can't we?"

"They only give you fifteen minutes—"

"We'll have the boats swung overside, provisioned and ready, two days ahead."

"But they don't care how far out to sea they leave you. I spent two weeks in an open boat once and I know you can't stand two days. The exposure—"

"When we get down to Galveston," Cappy interrupted triumphantly, "I'll have Mike Murphy buy a nice, staunch little secondhand motor cruiser, thirty-eight or forty feet long, with plenty of power and comfortable living accommodations for half a dozen people. Mike will arrange for extra oil and gasoline tankage, and we'll swing this cruiser in on the main deck and let it rest there in a cradle, with the slings round it, ready to lift overside with the cargo derricks at a minute's notice. I'll be as snug in that little cruiser as a bug under a chip—and we'll tow the lifeboats. So that settles it—and if it doesn't I'd like to know who's the boss of this shebang, anyhow!"

Mr. Skinner glanced covertly at Captain Matt Peasley and shook his head almost imperceptibly, as who should say: "Better give in to him, Matt. I know him longer than you do; he'll have his way if it kills him." And Matt took the hint, with the result that some six weeks later Cappy Ricks, accompanied by his faithful port captain and his equally faithful port engineer, cleared for Galveston aboard the Sunset Limited. And at Galveston began the only real vacation Cappy Ricks had ever had.



CHAPTER LI



To begin, there was the task of superintending the installation of the accommodations for the cargo of mules and horses. Cappy was particularly interested in the ventilating system below decks, for he was fond of horses and had resolved to deliver the cargo without the loss of a single animal. Of no mediocre turn of mind mechanically, he, assisted by Terry Reardon, made a few suggestions that the British veterinaries in charge were very glad to accept.

The real enjoyment of the trip, however, Cappy found down at the breaking corrals where the horses were detraining. They were all young and full of life, and fully ninety per cent of them had only been halter-broken. In the lot was many an outlaw whose ancestors had run wild for generations in Nevada; and as the delivery contract specified that a horse to be accepted must be broken—God save the mark!—as Terence Reardon remarked after seeing one passed as broken, following five minutes of furious pitching and squealing—Cappy Ricks was one of the first at the corral and the last to leave. Perched on the topmost, rail, he piped encouragement to the lank, flat-bellied border busters who, a dozen times a day, risked life and limb at five dollars a bust.

Mike Murphy and Terence Reardon, who had ridden more than one China Sea typhoon and West India hurricane, marvelled that men should take such risks for any amount of money. Privately they considered Cappy Ricks an accessory before the fact, inasmuch as Cappy hung up at least five hundred dollars in small prizes for the vaqueros. Whenever they had a "bad one" they could always induce Cappy to offer ten dollars for staying two minutes and five dollars a minute for each minute over the limit—which seldom reached two minutes. Also, Cappy was willing to furnish two silver dollars whenever some adventurer thought he could put a dollar between each leg and the saddle and have the dollars there when the horse surrendered. They ran in a couple of trained buckers on Cappy and depleted his bank roll considerably before he began to smell a rat.

To these plainsmen, charged with the destinies of the mounts for the young British soldier, Cappy Ricks was known familiarly as Cap. Before the last of the horses had been passed as broken and hustled aboard the big Narcissus, Cappy knew each horse wrangler by his first name or nickname, and had learned the intricacies of many hitherto unheard-of games of chance that flourish along the Rio Grande. He was an expert at cooncan, and Pangingi fascinated him; then they taught him Mexican monte, and one worthless individual stole an ace out of the deck, whereupon all hands had a joyous hack at Cappy, who, when informed privately by his friend, Sam Daniels, foreman of the outfit, that he was in bad company and being skinned alive, went uptown and bought some specially constructed dice, which he introduced brazenly into a crap game, thereby more than catching even. He was the last man in the world a gang of wicked cowboys would suspect of guile; all of them, quite foolishly, thought he had more money than brains.

Eventually, however, the Narcissus was loaded, Cappy moved into the owner's suite, and his new-found friends bunked in a temporary deck house forward when they weren't busy below decks playing chambermaid to the cargo. And with Cappy's motor cruiser swung in the cradle, ready for launching from the main deck aft, the Narcissus slipped out of Galveston and went snoring across the Gulf of Mexico, bound for Le Havre.

Mike Murphy was not happy, however. He resented Cappy Ricks, who would persist in going below to inspect the cargo and in consequence smelled like a hostler. Moreover, Michael was the port captain of the Blue Star Navigation Company now and not the master of the ship; and the Narcissus wasn't out of sight of land before Mike made the discovery that the boatswain of the ship was absolutely inefficient, that the cook was wasteful, that the first officer was too talkative, and the skipper too easy-going.

And these conditions, on a ship he had once commanded, irked Murphy exceedingly. Terence Reardon was in much the same state of mind. Being port engineer, he investigated the engine room and found that his favorite monkey wrench had been lost; there were two leaky tubes in the main boiler; the ash hoist was out of kilter; his successor in the Narcissus was carrying ten pounds of steam less than Terence used to carry; and there was something not quite right with the condenser. The engine room crew Terence characterized to Mike Murphy as a gang of "vagabones," and hinted darkly at sweeping changes when the ship should get back to the United States. Once he went so far as to state that he might have expected as much when, upon leaving the Narcissus to become port engineer, he had given her to his old first assistant; since he had never known a first assistant, barring himself, to make a good chief!



CHAPTER LII



On the very day the Narcissus left Galveston the German submersible V-l4 left her base at Zeebrugge, with oil and torpedoes sufficient to last her on an ordinary three weeks' cruise, and promptly headed for that section of the Atlantic where information and belief told her commander the hunting would be good. And it was—so good, in fact, that to the very great disgust of her crew she had just two torpedoes in stock when the man on watch at her periscope reported a large freight steamer to the west. Promptly the V-l4 submerged and proceeded on a course calculated to intercept the freighter, which presently was discovered to be the U.S.S. Narcissus.

The captain of the V-l4 almost licked his chops. He had heard of the Narcissus. The neutrality laws of the United States had prevented him from hearing of her by wireless when she cleared from Galveston, but he had been on the lookout for her, just the same, ever since a Dutch steamer from New York, with an alert German chief mate, had touched at Copenhagen, from which point the dispatches that mate carried had gone underground straight to the office of the German Admiralty. The information anent the Narcissus had been brief but illuminating: She had been chartered to carry horses for the British Government from Galveston to Le Havre, and the word to get her at all hazards had been passed to the submarine flotilla.

Captain Emil Bechtel, of the V-l4, did not possess an Iron Cross of any nature whatsoever, and as he studied the oncoming Narcissus through the periscope he reflected that this big brute of a boat would bring him one, provided he was lucky. He remembered he had but two torpedoes left, and under the circumstances he paused to consider.

Clearly—since the Narcissus was laden with horses and mules for the enemy she was carrying contraband—she must not escape. On the other hand, there had been a deal of unpleasantness of late because President Wilson had been protesting the sinking of vessels without warning—and the Narcissus was a United States steamer. Consequently if he torpedoed her without warning the temperamental Kaiser might make of Captain Emil Bechtel what is colloquially known as the goat; whereas, on the other hand, should he conform to international law and place her crew in safety before sinking her, there was a chance that her wireless might summon a patrol boat to the vicinity—Bechtel had sighted one less than an hour before—and patrol boats had a miserable habit, when they sighted a periscope, of shooting it to pieces.

Then, too, it was just possible that the perfidious English had mounted a couple of six-inch guns on her after getting to sea—and the German knew a six-inch shell, well-placed, would send his vessel to the bottom. Moreover, it was sunset; in half an hour it would be twilight; he had no knowledge of the speed of the Narcissus and she might try to make a run for it, thus forcing him to come to the surface and shell her should he miss with his torpedoes. Further, if he attacked her and she escaped, there was an elderly gentleman with whiskers back in Berlin who would do things to him if the Kaiser didn't.

There was, however, one course open to the German. To his way of thinking, during the exciting diplomatic tangle with the United States, he would be damned if he did and damned if he didn't; but if he did, and nobody could prove it, old Von Tirpitz would ask no questions.

"I'll let her have it," Captain Emil Bechtel concluded; and he passed the word to get ready.

A minute later Cappy Ricks, smoking his after-dinner cigar on the bridge of the Narcissus with her skipper and Mike Murphy, pointed far off the port bow.

"There's a shark or a swordfish, or something, breaching," he said. "I can see his wake."

Mike Murphy took a casual glance in the direction Cappy was pointing, while the master of the Narcissus reached for his marine glasses and lazily put them to his eyes.

"Shark be damned!" yelled Murphy. "It's a torpedo or I'm a Chinaman! Hard-a-starboard!"

He leaped for the engine-room telegraph and jammed it over to Full Speed Astern; then dashed into the pilot house and commenced a furious ringing of the ship's bell, summoning the crew to boat drill, the while his anxious eye marked the swift progress of the white streak coming toward them. What wind there was happened fortunately to be on the vessel's port counter, and as the helmsman spun the wheel the big vessel fell off quickly and easily, while the rumble of her shaft, suddenly reversed, fairly shook the ship. To Cappy Ricks it seemed that the vessel must be brought up standing, like one of the broncos he had seen ridden with a Spanish bit; but a big ship under full headway is not stopped very abruptly, and the Narcissus swept on, turning as she went in order to offer as little target as possible to the torpedo.

"Will we make it, Mike?" Cappy Ricks queried in a very small, awed voice.

Mike Murphy turned and found his owner at his elbow.

"I hope it hits her forward," he replied. "That motor cruiser is cradled aft and we might save it. They never hailed us—ah-h-h, missed!"

The torpedo flew by, missing the big blunt bow by less than three feet.

"I guess they'll get us just the same," Mike Murphy murmured quietly; "but we're going down fighting."

And, disregarding the master of the Narcissus, who was staring vacantly after the flying torpedo, he rang for Full Speed Ahead, and called down the speaking tube to the chief to hook her on for all he had; then, with his helm still hard-a-starboard, he swung the ship in as small a circle as possible and headed her at full speed back over the course so recently traveled by the torpedo.

"That was a beautifully timed shot—that last one," he informed Cappy Ricks admiringly. "If we'd sighted it thirty seconds later—"

"Where the devil are you going, man?" Cappy yelled frantically.

"I'm going to give that fellow a surprise," Murphy growled. "He expected us to run for it after that first one missed—and I'm running for him! He may not get me with the next one if I come bows on—and I might ram him! I'll take a chance. Keep your eyes open for his periscope."

Aboard the V-l4 Captain Emil Bechtel said nothing, but thought a great deal—when he saw that his first torpedo had missed its prey. He was in for it now; he had started something and he had to go through. And, anticipating that the Narcissus would show him her heels and steer a zigzag course, he immediately launched his last torpedo as the horse transport lay quartering to him.

To his disgust, however, the steamer, having avoided the first torpedo, did not run as he had anticipated. Instead, she continued to turn round on her heels, each revolution of her wheel lifting her out of the course of the second torpedo, since the submarine had fired slightly ahead of the vessel, knowing that if she continued for two minutes on the course he expected her to take she would steam fairly across the path of the huge missile. So he missed again—the torpedo slid under her stern—and here was that demon horse transport bearing down on him at full speed and with a bone in her teeth.

"The jig is up," murmured Bechtel, and gave the order to submerge deeper, for he would not risk showing his periscope to the keen eyes on that bridge.

For ten minutes he waited, while the submarine scuttled blindly out of the path of the onrushing transport; then, concluding that the Narcissus had passed him, he came up and took a look round. He was right. A cable length astern and another off his port quarter the steamer was plunging over the darkening sea, and Captain Emil Bechtel knew he had her now; so promptly he came to the surface.

Mike Murphy, glancing off his starboard quarter, saw her periscope come swiftly up; then her turret showed; then her turtle deck flashed for a moment on the surface, like a giant fish, before she rose higher and the water cascaded down her sides.

Cappy Ricks' anxious face turned a delicate green; he glanced up at his bully port captain as if in that rugged personality alone could he hope for salvation. Murphy caught the glance, shook his head, walked over to the engine-room telegraph and set the handle over to stop.