Chapter L - Page 2

knows he has to take a chance. Bet you Mike Murphy could take that cargo of livestock across and bring another cargo back. He's luckier than a cross-eyed coon. And another thing, Matt: If you accept that business we can kill two birds with one stone--yes, three--because Mike and Terry and I will cross over on the Narcissus and save the price of transportation from here to New York, and from New York to Liverpool. Then, while the Narcissus is discharging and taking on another cargo, we'll go scouting for available steamers."

"It might be done, though I hate to think of it Cappy. If we lose the vessel they'll pay us a million and a half for her, of course--and she cost us less than three hundred thousand a year ago. And, as you say, we'll collect the freight in advance. They're very anxious to get the Narcissus. She's a whopping big boat, and that's the kind of a vessel they need for a horse transport."

"Yes; and, by the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, it will be a bully vacation, and a bully vacation is something I haven't had since the night of the big wind in Ireland. Moreover, I combine business with pleasure, which is always desirable; and, if that isn't excuse enough, I want to tell you it's cheaper to travel dead-head on our own boats than to pay for three round-trip tickets to Europe on a Cunard liner."

"But suppose a German submarine--"

"Matt, all my life I've played a quiet, safe, sane, conservative game. I've always longed for adventure and never had it. Why, just consider a moment what a tiresome thing life would be were it not for the prospect of death at any moment! That's all that keeps us hustling, my boy--trying to put over a winning run before the game is called on account of darkness. Hell's bells! Don't try to scare me with a sheet and the rattle of old bones. Suppose they do blow us up? We don't lose a dollar; in fact, we make money--and we can take to the boats, can't we?"

"They only give you fifteen minutes--"

"We'll have the boats swung overside, provisioned and ready, two days ahead."

"But they don't care how far out to sea they leave you. I spent two weeks in an open boat once and I know you can't stand two days. The exposure--"

"When we get down to Galveston," Cappy interrupted triumphantly, "I'll have Mike Murphy buy a nice, staunch little secondhand motor cruiser, thirty-eight or forty feet long, with plenty of power and comfortable living accommodations for half a dozen people. Mike will arrange for extra oil and gasoline tankage, and we'll swing this cruiser in on the main deck and let it rest there in a cradle, with the slings round it, ready to lift overside with the cargo derricks at a minute's notice. I'll be as snug in that little cruiser as a bug under a chip--and we'll tow the lifeboats. So that settles it--and if it doesn't I'd like to know