eakfast at the Marigold Cafe. After breakfast, they called
at the office of the agents, where they were complimented on
their daring seamanship and received a check for one thousand
dollars each.

"Well, now," McGuffey declared, after they had cashed their
checks, "Seein' as how I've become independently wealthy by
following your lead, Adelbert, all I got to say is that I'm
a-goin' to stick to you like a limpet to a rock. What'll we do
with our money?"

For the first time in his checkered career Mr. Gibney had a sane,
sensible, and serious thought. "Has it ever occurred to you, Mac,
how much nicer it is to have a few dollars in the bank, good
clothes on your back, an' a credit with your friends? Me, all my
life I been a come-easy, go-easy, come-Sunday,-God'll-send-Monday
sort o' feller, until in my forty-second year I'm little better'n
a beachcomber. It sure hurt me to have to beg that ornery Scraggs
for a job; if I ever sighed for independence it was the other
night in Halfmoon Bay when, footsore an' desperate, we stood by
an' let that little wart harpoon us. So now, when you ask me what
I'm goin' to do with my money, I'll tell you I'm going to save
it, after first payin' up about seventy-five bucks I owe here an'
there along the Front. I'm through drinkin' an' raisin' hell. Me
for a savings bank, Bart."

"I said I'd string with you an' I will. After we deposit our
money suppose we drop down to Jackson Street wharf an' say hello
to Scraggs. I got a great curiosity to see what that new engineer
has done to my boiler."

CHAPTER XIV

When Captain Scraggs, after abandoning all hope of salving the
bark _Chesapeake_, returned to the _Maggie_, the little craft
reminded him of nothing so much as the ward for the incorrigible
of an insane asylum. Due to Captain Scraggs's stupidity and the
general inefficiency of the _Maggie_, the new navigating officer
was of the opinion that he had been swindled out of his share of
the salvage, while the new engineer, furious at having been
engaged to baby such a ruin as the _Maggie's_ boiler turned out
to be, blamed Scraggs's parsimony for the loss of _his_ share of
the salvage. Therefore, both men aired with the utmost frankness
their opinion of their employer; even Neils Halvorsen was peeved.
Their depression and rage was nothing, however, compared with
that of Captain Scraggs's. He had recklessly jettisoned
approximately two hundred dollars' worth of vegetables; indeed
th