Ricks send him to you, sir?"

"No--not that he wouldn't, however, if he'd ever met the boy. The
crimp brought him aboard with the sweepings and scrapings of San
Francisco."

"I hope he wasn't drunk--like the rest," Mr. Murphy answered
anxiously. "'Twould be a sin to desecrate that lovely body with
whiskey."

"He was bung up and bilge free--and that's why he's chief kicker now.
The hawser's fast for'd, Mr. Murphy. Cast off your stern line."

"All clear for'd, sir," Matt Peasley's shout came ranging down the
wind, and the tug snatched the big barkentine out from the mill dock
into the stream where she cast her off, put her big towing hawser
aboard, paid it out and started for Grays Harbor bar.



CHAPTER IV

BAD NEWS FROM CAPE TOWN


On a certain day in February Mr. Skinner, coming into Cappy Ricks'
office with a cablegram in his hand, found his employer doubled up at
his desk and laughing in senile glee.

"I have a cablegram--" Mr. Skinner began.