squarehead to dodge a deckload of piling and leave it for us."

"Well, whatever it was it amused him greatly. It must be worse than a
deckload of piling."

"There's nothing worse in the timber line, unless it's a load
underdeck, sir. You take a sixty-foot pile with a fourteen-inch butt
and try to shove it down through the hatch, and you've got a job on
your hands. And after the hold is half filled you've got to quit
loading through the hatch, cut ports in your bows, and shove the
sticks in that way. It's the slowest loading and discharging in the
world; and unless you drive her between ports and make up for the lost
time you don't make a good showing with your owners--and then your
job's in danger. Ship owners never consider anything except results."

"Well," the captain answered, "in order not to waste any more time
than is absolutely necessary, call Mr. MacLean and the cook, and we'll
go for'd and break out the anchor."

Immediately on his arrival from Cape Town, Matt Peasley had paid off
all his foremast hands, leaving the two mates and the cook the only
men aboard the vessel. He joined them now in a walk around the
capstan; the launch hooked on and the Retriever was snaked across the
harbor to Weatherby's mill. And, while they were still three cables'
length from the mill dock, Mr. Murphy, who had taken up his position
on the topgallant forecastle, to be ready with a heaving line,
suddenly raised his head and sniffed upwind.

The captain had the wheel and Mr. MacLean was standing aft waiting to
do his duty by the stern line. Presently he, too, raised his head and