y man to
get along with. When the Old Man introduced him to Matt, he extended a
horny right hand that closed on Matt's like the jaws of a dredger, the
while he ran an equally horny left hand up and down the chief mate's
arm.

"I'm sure we'll get along famously together, Mr. Murphy," Matt
suggested.

Again Mr. Murphy ran his hand over that great arm.

"You know it!" he declared with conviction.

Captain Noah laughed aloud, and as Matt scampered forward over the
deckload, herding his savages before him, to receive the tug's breast
line and make it fast on the bitts the skipper turned to Mr. Murphy.

"There's a lad for you," he declared.

"He has manners and muscle, and those are two things that seldom go
together," Mr. Murphy rejoined. "He's Down-Easter, I see. Did Cappy
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.

"I have a good story," Cappy interrupted. "Let me tell it to you,
Skinner. Oh, dear! I believe this is about going to kill the boys up on
'Change when I tell them." He wiped his eyes, controlled his mirth and
turned to the general manager. "Skinner," he said, "did you know I had
gotten back into the harness while you were up at the Astoria mill? Well
I did, Skinner. I had to, you know. If it was the last act of my life I
had to square accounts with that man Hudner, of the Black Butte Lumber
Company."

Mr. Skinner nodded. He was aware of the feud that existed between Cappy
and Hudner, and the reasons therefor. The latter had stolen from Cappy a
stenographer, who had grown to spinsterhood in h