. "That fellow Peasley sees a few white caps on
the bar, and he's afraid to cross out. Damn! Kjellin had her three years
and never hung behind a bar once. Many a time he's come down to Humboldt
Bar and found half a dozen steam schooners at anchor inside, waiting for
a chance to duck out. Did Kjellin drop anchor too? He did not. Out he
went and bucked right through it."

Mr. Skinner waited at the office until six o'clock to get Matt Peasley's
answer. He got it--between the eyes:

I have no jurisdiction over Humboldt Bar.

The Quickstep crossed out next morning, and Mr. Skinner wirelessed her
master this message:

Your timidity has spoiled San Pedro passenger business. Drop Eureka
passengers at Meiggs Wharf and continue your voyage.

Now it does not please any mariner to be told that he is timid, and,
while Matt Peasley made no reply, nevertheless, he chalked up a black
mark against Mr. Skinner and commenced to plan against the day of
reckoning.

That was an unusually severe winter. Four times Matt Peasley came down
to the entrance to Humboldt Bar and came to anchor. Three times he tried
to cross out and was forced to change his mind; seven times did Mr.
Skinner upbraid him. The eighth time that Matt Peasley's caution knocked
the San Francisco passenger traffic into a deficit, Mr. Skinner sent him
this message where the Quickstep lay behind Coos Bay Bar:

What is the matter with you? Your predecessor always managed to
negotiate that bar, and this company expects same of you.

"He's bound to run me out of this ship," Matt soliloquized when he read
that terse aerogram, "but I promised Cappy I'd stick six months and
I'll do it. That penny-pinching Skinner wants me to cut corners and get
myself into trouble so he can fire me. I'll not tell him the things I
want to tell him, so I guess I won't say anything--much."

He didn't. He just wired Mr. Skinner as follows:

Any time you want to commit suicide I will furnish a pistol.

About the beginning of March Mr. Skinner opened his cold heart long
enough to let in a little human love and get married, and shortly
thereafter he found it necessary to make a business trip to the redwood
mill of the Ricks Lumber and Logging Company on Humboldt Bay. He went
up on the regular P. C. passenger boat and took his bride with him, and
while he was at the mill Matt Peasley came nosing in with the Quickstep
and loaded a cargo of redwood lumber. He finished loading on the same
day that