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At the same time, Scraggs and Neils Halvorsen came crawling aft over the deckload and when they reached the clear space around the pilot house, Captain Scraggs threw his brown derby on the deck and leaped upon it until, his rage abating ultimately, no power on earth, in the air, or under the sea, could possibly have rehabilitated it and rendered it fit for further wear, even by Captain Scraggs.
Gibney departed. An hour later a barge was bunted alongside the Victor and Neils Halvorsen appeared in Scraggs's cabin to inform him that the five hundred tons of freight was ready to be taken aboard. "All right, Neils. I'll put a gang to work right off." He came out on deck, paused, tilted his nose, and sniffed. He was still sniffing when McGuffey bounced up out of the engine room.
Gibney and Bartholomew McGuffey he knew had turned their sun-tanned faces toward deep water some years before Captain Scraggs and the Maggie disappeared from the environs of San Francisco Bay, and Neils Halvorsen was wise enough to waste no time wondering what had become of them.
"If Neils Halvorsen had asked you that question when he come to rescue you the day you lay a-dyin' o' thirst on that desert island, wouldn't you have said yes?" "Sure pop." "Then don't ask no questions that's unworthy of you," said Mr. Gibney severely. "I don't want to see none o' them green-pea trade ethics croppin' up in you, Scraggsy.
I wouldn't leave a crocodile on that hell hole, if I could help it." An hour later the Robinson Crusoe Syndicate, including the man Friday and the Goat, were safe aboard the Maggie II, and Neils Halvorsen, with the tears streaming down his bronzed cheeks, was sparingly doling out to them a mixture of brandy and water.
An' if I was you, I'd find out how much o' this two thousand dollars' towage he's goin' to distribute to his crew. Pers'nally I'd get mine in advance." "Adelbert P. Gibney," Captain Scraggs hissed. "There's such a thing as drivin' a man to distraction. Halvorsen, are you with me?" "Aye bane for saxty dollars. Hay bane worth a month's pay for take dat swim." "You dirty Scowegian ingrate.
The artful fellow realized that Scraggs knew nothing whatever about a sailing ship and would have to depend upon The Squarehead for the information he required. "All right. Here's your money," Scraggs replied and handed Mr. Gibney twenty dollars. He and Neils Halvorsen then went forward, got out the steel towing cable, and fastened a light rope to the end of it.
"I ain't licked yet not by a jugful," Scraggs snapped. "Halvorsen, haul down that signal halyard from the mizzenmast, take one end of it in your teeth, an' swim back to the Maggie with it. We'll fasten a heavier line to the signal halyard, bend the other end of the heavy line to the cable, an' haul the cable aboard with the Maggie's winch."
Gibney's armpits and next his rascally skin, he purchased tickets under assumed names for himself, Scraggs, McGuffey, and Halvorsen on the liner Hilonian, due to sail at noon next day. These details attended to, the Maggie II backed away from the dock under her own power and cast anchor off the quarantine station. The mate was then brought on deck and made to confront the syndicate.
A quick circuit of the ship convinced Neils Halvorsen that the remainder of the dastard crew were evidently ashore, so he descended to the cabin in search of further evidence of crime.
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