"A little creosoted piling now and then is bully for the best of men,"

he cackled. "For a month of Sundays that man Peasley will curse me as far as he can smell the Retriever. Oh, well! Every dog must have his day--and I'm a wise old dog. I'll teach that Matt boy some respect for his owners before I'm through with him!"

CHAPTER XII. THE CAMPAIGN OPENS

When Matt Peasley's Yankee combativeness, coupled with the accident of birth in the old home town of Cappy Ricks, gained for him command of the Blue Star Navigation Company's big barkentine, Retriever, he lacked eight days of his twenty-first birthday. He had slightly less beard than the average youth of his years; and, despite the fact that he had been exposed almost constantly to salty gales since his fourteenth birthday, he did not look his age. And of all the ridiculous sights ash.o.r.e or afloat the most ridiculous is a sea captain with the body of a Hercules and the immature features of an eighteen-year-old boy.

Indeed, such a great, soft, innocent baby type was Matt Peasley that even the limited sense of humor possessed by his motley crew forbade their reference to him, after custom immemorial, as the Old Man. The formal t.i.tle of captain seemed equally absurd; so they compromised by dubbing him Mother's Darling.

"If," quoth Mr. Michael Murphy, chief kicker of the Retriever, over a quiet pipe with Mr. Angus MacLean, the second mate, as the vessel lay at anchor in Grays Harbor, "Cappy Ricks had laid eyes on Mother's Darling before ordering him to Seattle to go up for his master's ticket, the old fox would have scuttled the ship sooner than trust that baby with her."

"Ye'll nae be denying the lad kens his business," Mr. MacLean declared.

"Aye! True enough, Mac; but 'twould be hard to convince Cappy Ricks o'

that. Every skipper in his employ is a graybeard."

"Mayhap," the canny MacLean retorted. "That's because t'owd boy's skippers have held their berths ower long."

But Mr. Murphy shook his head. He had come up from before the mast in the ships of the Blue Star Navigation Company, and since he had ambitions he had been at some pains to acquaint himself with the peculiarities of the president of that corporation.

"Give Cappy Ricks one look into Matt Peasley's face and I'll be skippering the Retriever," he declared.

And in this he was more than half right, for Cappy Ricks had never met Matt Peasley, and when the Old Man made up his mind that he wanted the boy to skipper his barkentine, the Retriever, he was acting entirely on instinct. He only knew that in Matt Peasley he had a man who had shipped out before the mast and returned from the voyage in command of the ship, and naturally such an exploit challenged recognition of the most signal nature--particularly when, in its performance, the object of Cappy's admiration had demonstrated that he was possessed of certain sterling attributes which are commonly supposed to make for success in any walk of life.

Since Matt Peasley had accomplished a man's work it never occurred to Cappy Ricks to consider that the object of his interest might be a boy.

Young he knew him to be--that is to say, Cappy figured the rascal to be somewhere between thirty and thirty-five.

Had he known, however, that his prospective captain had but recently attained his majority the Old Man would have ascribed Matt Peasley's record-breaking voyage from Cape Town to Grays Harbor as sheer luck, and forthwith would have set Master Matthew down for a five-year apprenticeship as first mate; for Cappy was the product of an older day, and held that gray hairs and experience are the prime requisites for a berth as master.

Any young upstart can run coastwise, put in his service sailing a ship from headland to headland, and then take a course in a navigation school, where in six weeks he can cram sufficient navigation into his thick head to pa.s.s the inspectors and get a master's ticket; but for offsh.o.r.e cruising Cappy Ricks demanded a real sailor and a thorough business man rolled into one.

Mother's Darling had returned to Grays Harbor from a flying visit to Seattle, where two grizzled old ex-salts, the local inspectors, had put him through a severe examination to ascertain what he knew of Bowditch on Navigation and Nichols on Seamanship. Naturally he did not know as much as they thought he should; but, out of sheer salt-water pride in the exploit of a stripling and in deference to a letter from Cappy Ricks requesting them to waive further probation as chief mate and issue Mr.

Peasley his master's license if they found him at all competent--this in order that the said Peasley might take command of his barkentine, the Retriever, forthwith--the inspectors concluded to override the rules of the Department of Commerce, and gave Matt Peasley his master's license.

Upon his return from Seattle, Matt called at the telegraph office in Hoquiam and received his loading instructions from the owners. His heart beat high with youthful importance and the joy of victory as he almost ran to the water front and engaged a big gasoline launch to take him aboard the Retriever and then kick her into the mill dock at Cosmopolis.

His ship was not where he had left her, however, and after an hour's search he discovered her several miles up the Chehalis river. Murphy was on deck, gazing wistfully at the house and wishing he had some white paint, when Matt Peasley came aboard. Even before the latter leaped to the deck Mr. Murphy knew the glad tidings--knew them, in fact, the very instant the boy's shining countenance appeared above the rail. The skipper was grinning fatuously and Mr. Murphy grinned back at him.

"Well, sir," he greeted young Matt, "I see you're the permanent skipper.

I congratulate you."

"Thank you, Mike. And I hope you will have no objection to continuing in your berth as first mate. I realize I'm pretty young for an old sailor like you to be taking orders from--"

"Bless your soul, sir," Mr. Murphy protested; "of course I'll stick with you! Didn't you whale the big Swede Cappy Ricks sent to Cape Town to kick you out of your just due?" He reaffirmed his loyalty with a contemptuous grunt.

"What are you doing way up the river?" the captain demanded.

"Oh, that's a little liberty I took," the mate declared. "You're new to this coast; and, of course, when they ordered us to Grays Harbor I knew we weren't going to be able to go on dry dock, because there isn't any dry dock here. So, while you were in Seattle, I had a gasoline tug tow us up-river. We've been lying in fresh water four days, sir, and that'll kill most of the worms on her bottom."

"Hereafter," said Matt Peasley, "you get ten dollars a month above the scale. Thank you."

Mr. Murphy acknowledged his appreciation.

"Any orders, sir?" he continued.

Matt Peasley showed him Cappy Ricks' telegram and Mr. Murphy nodded his approval. He had been in port nearly a week and the whine of the sawmills and the reek of river water had begun to get on his nerves. He was ready for the dark blue again.

"There's something wrong about our cargo, I think," Matt remarked presently.

"Why, sir?"

"Why, down at the telegraph office this morning I met the master of the schooner, Carrier Dove, and when I told him my orders he snickered."

"Huh! Well, he ought to know what he snickered about, sir. The Carrier Dove just finished loading at Weatherby's mill," Mr. Murphy replied.

"She's a Blue Star craft and bound for Antof.a.gasta also. Her skipper's Salvation Pete Hansen, and it would be just like that squarehead to dodge a deckload of piling and leave it for us."

"Well, whatever it was it amused him greatly. It must be worse than a deckload of piling."

"There's nothing worse in the timber line, unless it's a load underdeck, sir. You take a sixty-foot pile with a fourteen-inch b.u.t.t and try to shove it down through the hatch, and you've got a job on your hands.

And after the hold is half filled you've got to quit loading through the hatch, cut ports in your bows, and shove the sticks in that way. It's the slowest loading and discharging in the world; and unless you drive her between ports and make up for the lost time you don't make a good showing with your owners--and then your job's in danger. Ship owners never consider anything except results."

"Well," the captain answered, "in order not to waste any more time than is absolutely necessary, call Mr. MacLean and the cook, and we'll go for'd and break out the anchor."

Immediately on his arrival from Cape Town, Matt Peasley had paid off all his foremast hands, leaving the two mates and the cook the only men aboard the vessel. He joined them now in a walk around the capstan; the launch hooked on and the Retriever was snaked across the harbor to Weatherby's mill. And, while they were still three cables' length from the mill dock, Mr. Murphy, who had taken up his position on the topgallant forecastle, to be ready with a heaving line, suddenly raised his head and sniffed upwind.

The captain had the wheel and Mr. MacLean was standing aft waiting to do his duty by the stern line. Presently he, too, raised his head and sniffed.

"I see you got it too, Mac," Mr. Murphy bawled.

"Aw, weel," Mr. MacLean replied; "Why worrit aboot a bridge till ye hae to cross it? D'ye ken 'tis oors?"

"What are you two fellows talking about and why are you sniffing?" Matt Peasley demanded.

"I'm sniffing at the same thing Salvation Pete Hansen laughed about,"

the mate answered. "I'll bet you a uniform cap we're stuck with a cargo of creosoted piling--and h.e.l.l hath no fury like a creosoted pile."

When the vessel had been made fast to the mill dock Matt Peasley walked forward to meet his mate.

"What about this cargo of ours?" he demanded. "Remember, I'm new to the lumber trade on this coast. I have never handled any kind of piling."

"Then, sir, you're going to get your education like the boa constrictor that swallowed the n.i.g.g.e.r--all in one long, slimy bite."

He gazed at his boyish skipper appraisingly.

"No," he murmured to himself; "I can't do it. I like you for the way you whaled that big Swede in Cape Town, but this is too much."

"Why, I don't find the odor so very unpleasant," the master declared; "in fact, I rather like it, and I know it's healthy, because I remember, when my brother Ezra had pneumonia, they burned creosote in the room."