"Did you get the letter we sent Captain Grant at Panama?" Skinner
managed to articulate presently.

Matt nodded affirmatively.

"Opened it, I suppose!" Cappy accused him.

Matt nodded negatively, produced the letter from his pocket and handed
it to Cappy.

"Where I was raised," he said gently, "they taught boys that it was
wrong to read other people's private correspondence. You will note that
the seal is unbroken."

"Thank God for that!" Cappy Ricks murmured, sotto voice, and tore the
letter into tiny bits. "Now, then," he said, "we'll hear the rest of
your story."

"When did a doctor look you over last?" Matt queried. "I'm afraid you'll
die of heart disease before I finish."

"I'm sound in wind and limb," Cappy declared. "I'm not so young as I
used to be; but, by Jupiter, there isn't any young pup on the street who
can tell me where to head in! What next?"

"Of course, Mr. Ricks, very shortly after I had rechartered the Tillicum
to Morrow & Company I began to suspect they were shy of sufficient
capital to run their big business comfortably. I found it very hard to
collect; so, fully a month before they went up the spout, I commenced
to figure on what would happen to me if they did. Consequently, I wasn't
caught napping. On the day Morrow committed suicide the company gave me
a check that was repudiated at the bank. I protested it and immediately
served formal notice on Morrow & Company that their failure to meet
the terms of our charter party necessitated immediate cancellation; and
accordingly I was cancelling it."

"Did you send that notice by registered mail?" Skinner demanded.

"You bet!--with a return registry receipt requested."

Cappy nodded at Skinner approvingly, as though to say: "Smart of him,
eh?" Matt continued:

"After sending my wireless to Captain Grant aboard the Tillicum I sent
a cablegram to the Panama Railroad people informing them that, owing to
certain circumstances over which I had no control, the steamer Tillicum,
fully loaded and en route to Panama to discharge cargo, had been turned
back on my hands by the charterers. I informed them I had diverted the
steamer to San Diego for orders, and in the interim, unless the Panama
Railroad guaranteed me by cable immediately sixty per cent. of the
through-freight rate for the Tillicum, and a return cargo to San
Francisco, I would decline to send the Tillicum to Panama, but would, on
the contrary, divert her to Tehuantepec and transship