e a real sailor sick at
the stomach."

"But I tell you she's a tule fog, Gib. She rises up in the
marshes of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, drifts down to the bay
and out the Golden Gate and just naturally blocks the wheels of
commerce while she lasts. Why, I've known the ferry boats between
San Francisco and Oakland to get lost for hours on their
twenty-minute run--and all along of a blasted tule fog."

"I don't doubt your word a mite, Scraggsy. I never did see a
ferry-boat skipper that knew shucks about sailorizing," the
imperturbable Gibney responded. "Me, I'll smell my way home in
any tule fog."

"Maybe you can an' maybe you can't, Gib, although far be it
from me to question your ability. I'll take it for granted.
Nevertheless, I ain't a-goin' to run the risk o' you havin'
catarrh o' the nose an' confusin' your smells to-night. You ain't
got nothin' at stake but your job, whereas if I lose the _Maggie_
I lose my hull fortune. Bring her about, Gib, an' let's hustle
back."

"Don't be an old woman," Mr. Gibney pleaded. "Scraggs, you just
ain't got enough works inside you to fill a wrist watch."

"I ain't a-goin' to poke around in the dark an' a tule fog,
feelin' for the Golden Gate," Captain Scraggs shrilled peevishly.

"Hell's bells an' panther tracks! I've got my old courses, an' if
I foller them we can't help gettin' home."

Captain Scraggs laid his hand on Mr. Gibney's great arm and tried
to smile paternally. "Gib, my _dear_ boy," he pleaded, "control
yourself. Don't argue with me, Gib. I'm master here an' you're
mate. Do I make myself clear?"

"You do, Scraggsy. But it won't avail you nothin'. You're only
master becuz of a gentleman's agreement between us two, an'
because I'm man enough to figger there's certain rights due you
as owner o' the _Maggie_. But don't you forget that accordin' to
the records o' the Inspector's office, I'm master of the
_Maggie_, an' the way I figger it, whenever there's any call to
show a little real seamanship, that gentleman's agreement don't
stand."

"But this ain't one o' them times, Gib."

"You're whistlin' it is. If we run from this here fog, it's
skiffs to battleships we don't get into San Francisco Bay an'
discharged before six o'clock to-morrow night. By the time we've
taken on coal an' water an' what-all, it'll be eight or nine
o'clock, with me an' McGuffey entitled to mebbe three dollars
overtime an' havin' to argue an' scrap with you to git it--not to
speak