“I guess he's right, Mr. Ricks. He 'most cried to let me go, an' was for waivin' the heart murmur, but it seems I got a floatin' kidney, an' flat feet. Gosh, I never knew I had flat feet, but then I've rid horses all my life an' ain't never hiked none to speak of.”
He was silent several minutes, studying the pattern of the office carpet. Presently he looked up. “Is my successor at the ranch already appointed?” he queried.
“Go back to the fields and the kind-faced cows, Samuel,” quoth Cappy gently. “Hurry, or you'll miss the train.”
Sam Daniels fled, and hard on his heels came Mrs. Michael J. Murphy, nee Miss Keenan. It will be recalled that prior to her happy alliance with Michael J. Murphy, Mrs. Murphy had been Cappy Ricks' favorite stenographer. He received her cordially.
“Now then, what's gone wrong, my dear?” he demanded. “Have you and Mike been making a hash of your married life that you should come in here on the verge of tears?”
Mrs. Murphy blinked away a tear or two and sat down. “Some of the boys in the office will be enlisting, Mr. Ricks,” she faltered. “I wonder if there might be a vacancy for me—if I might not have my old position back?”
Cappy Ricks was genuinely concerned. “Why, Mike won't let you earn your living,” he declared. “Why do you make such an extraordinary request?”
“For Mike's sake, Mr. Ricks. Of late he has been very nervous and distrait; scarcely touches his meals, and thinks, talks and dreams of war. Last night he dreamed he was back in the navy and shouted out an order that woke him up.”
“Come to think of it, I believe Mike did spend several years in the navy prior to going into mercantile marine,” Cappy observed. “So he has the war fever again, eh? Wants to go back?”
“Ever since he received a letter from the Navy League. They're searching out all the old navy men—gun pointers particularly—and asking them to come back to help train the young fellows just coming into the service. Mike was a gun pointer—”