Mr. Gibney picked up a paddle and threatened Scraggs with it.
"Dang your cold heart, Scraggs," he hissed, "you're un-Christian, that's what you are."
"Quit yer beefin', you shrimp," bellowed McGuffey. "Them cannibals would have et you if it wasn't for that poor devil of a mate."
Captain Scraggs snarled and remained discreetly silent. Nevertheless, he was in a fine rage. As he remarked sotto voce to Neils Halvorsen, five hundred dollars wasn't picked up in the street every day.
The next day, as the Hilonian steamed out of the harbour, bearing the syndicate back to San Francisco, they looked across at the little Maggie II for the last time, and observed that the mate was on deck, superintending three Kanaka sailors who were hoisting supplies aboard from a bumboat.
Commodore Gibney bade his first command a misty farewell.
"Good-bye, little ship," he yelled and waved his hand. "Gawd! You was a witch in a light wind."
"He'll be flyin' outer the harbour an' bound south by sunset," rumbled McGuffey. "I suppose that lovely gas engine o' mine'll go to hell now."
Captain Scraggs sighed dismally. "It costs like sixty to be a Christian, Gib, but what's the odds as long as we're safe an' homeward bound? Holy sailor! But I'm hungry for a smell o' Channel creek at low tide. I tell you, Gib, rovin' and wild adventure's all right, but the old green-pea trade wasn't so durned bad, after all."
"You bet!" McGuffey's response was very fervid.