her up.

"Skinner," said Cappy Ricks, "I've got a letter from the man Peasley
at last; and now, by golly, I can quit and take a vacation. Send in
a stenographer." The stenographer entered. "Take telegram--direct
message," he ordered, and commenced to dictate:

Captain Matthew Peasley,

Your resignation accepted. You are too almighty good for a
windjammer, Matthew. You need more room for the development of
your talent. Give Murphy the ship, with my compliments, and
tell him I've enjoyed the fight because it went to a knock-out.
Report to me at this office as soon as possible. You belong
in steam. A second mate's berth waiting for you. In a year
you will be first mate of steam; a year later you will be
master of steam, at two-fifty a month, and I will have a
four-million-foot freighter waiting for you if you make good.
The picture was a bully joke; but I could not laugh, Matt. It
is so long since I was a boy.

Cappy.

"Send that right away, like a good girl," he ordered. "He's about loaded
and he may have towed out before the telegram reaches him. Or, better
still, send the message in duplicate--one copy to the mill and the other
in care of the custom-house at Port Townsend. He'll have to touch in
there to clear the ship."

He walked into Mr. Skinner's office.

"Skinner," he said, "Murphy has the Retriever, and you're in charge of
the shipping. Attend to the transfer of authority before she gets out of
the Sound."

CHAPTER XXI. MATT PEASLEY MEETS A TALKATIVE STRANGER

Cappy Ricks' telegram to Matt, in care of the mill at Port Hadlock,
arrived several hours after the Retriever, fully loaded with fir lumber,
had been snatched away from the mill dock by a tug and started on her
long tow to Dungeness, where the hawser would be cast off. It was
not until the vessel came to a brief anchorage in the strait off Port
Townsend, the port of entry to Puget Sound, and Matt went ashore
to clear his ship, that the duplicate telegram sent in care of the
Collector of the Port, was handed to him.

He read and reread it. The news it contained seemed too good to be true.

"I guess I won't clear her after all," he announced to the deputy
collector.

The official nodded. "I didn't think you would," he replied. "I have
a telegram from the custom-house at San Francisco, apprising me that
Michael J. Murphy has been appointed master of the Retr