ou when we get to a
safe anchorage. Who are you?"

"Lindstrom, of the Golden Gate Life Saving Station."

"I'll not forget you, Lindstrom. My owners are Yankees, but
they're sports."

"All right. I'll telephone. On my way!"

"God speed you," murmured Mr. Gibney, and released his hold on
Captain Scraggs, who instantly threw his arms around the
navigating officer's burly neck. "I forgive you, Adelbert," he
crooned. "I forgive you freely. By the tail of the Great Sacred
Bull, you're a marvel. She's an all-night fog or I'm a Chinaman,
and if it only stays thick enough----"

"It'll hold," Gibney retorted doggedly. "It's a tule fog. They
always hold. Quit huggin' me. Your breath's bad. Them eggs, I
guess."

Captain Scraggs, hurled forcibly backward, bumped into the pilot
house, but lost none of his enthusiasm. "You're a jewel," he
declared. "Oh, man, what a head! Whatever made you think of the
_Yankee Prince_?"

"Because," Mr. Gibney answered calmly, "there ain't no such ship,
this land of ours bein' a free republic where princes don't grow.
Still, it's a nice name, Scraggs, old tarpot--more particular
since I thought it up in a hurry. Eh, what?"

"Halvorsen," cried Captain Scraggs.

The lone deckhand emerged from a hole in the freight forward
whither he had retreated to escape the vegetable barrage put over
by Captain Scraggs when McGuffey left the ship. "Aye, aye, sir,"
he boomed.

"All hands below to the galley!" Scraggs shouted. "While we're
waitin' for this here towboat I'll brew a scuttle o' grog to
celebrate the discovery o' real seafarin' talent. Gib, my _dear_
boy, I'm proud of you. No matter what happens, I'll never have no
other navigatin' officer."

"Don't crow till you're out o' the woods," the astute Gibney
warned him.

CHAPTER VI

In the office of the Red Stack Tug Boat Company, Captain Dan
Hicks, master of the tug _Aphrodite_; Captain Jack Flaherty,
master of the _Bodega_, and Tiernan, the assistant superintendent
on night watch, sat around a hot little box stove engaged in that
occupation so dear to the maritime heart, to-wit: spinning yarns.
Dan Hicks had the floor, and was relating a tale that had to do
with his life as a freight and passenger skipper.

"We was makin' up to the dock when I see the general agent
standin' in the door o' the dock office--an' all of a sudden I
didn't feel so chipper about havin' crossed Humboldt bar in a
sou'easter. I saw the old man runnin' his ey