d I seen the gulls wheel round the wreck, where something's
lying huddled. "Come on, puppy!" says I, waving Frankie down street with
them oysters, so all the traffic pauses to admire, and our second
officer is running good. More things I said, escorting him maybe a mile
aboard of the _Pluribus Unum_. And there I ate them oysters while he was
being coarse and rude, but all the time I seen the wreck heave sick and
sodden on the swell of the gulf, the circling gulls, and how they dove
down, pecking at a huddle of torn clothes beside the wheel.

Up thar on the tug's masthead I was owning to being in the wrong, while
Frankie Mac was promising faithful to tear my hide off over my ears when
I'm caught.

"Please, sir," says I, "it ain't so much the oysters worries me. It's
this yer Cap'n McGaw I done embezzled. Cayn't call it kidnaped 'cause
he's over sixty, but I stunned him illegal with a belaying-pin, and I
hears him groaning--times when you stops to pant."

But Frankie Mac wouldn't believe one word until he went down in the fore
peak to inquire, while I applied the hatch, and battened down.

So you see I'd got a tug, and the crew aboard, so the next thing was to
take in the hawsers, shove off, and let her drift on the ebb.

It's a caution to see how many taps and things besets an engine-room,
all of 'em heaps efficient. The first thing I handled proved up plenty
steam, for my left arm was pink and blisters for a week. Next I found a
tap called bilge-valve injection, which lets in the sea when you wants
to sink the ship. I turned him full, and went to sit on the fore hatch
while I sucked my arm, and had a chat with the crew.

They was talkative, and battering at the hatch with an ax, so I'd hardly
a word in edgeways. Then they got scared we'd blow up before we drowned.
Allus in my mind I'd see them gulls squawkin' around the wreck, and
mother fighting them. That heaped thing by the wheel was dad, for I seen
the whites of his eyes as the ship lurched him. An' the gulls--

Cap'n McGaw was pleadin' with me, then Mr. McMillan. They swore they'd
take me to the wreck for nothin', they'd give their Bible oath, they'd
sign agreements. McGaw had a wife and family ashore. McMillan was in
love.

I turned off the bilge-valve injection, opened the fore hatch, and set
them two to work. They was quite tame, and that night I slept--only to
wake up screechin' at the things I seen in dreams.

Seven days we searched for the wreck befo