o take.

"Why didn't you grab the ship away from me? If you had done that you
would be in the clear to-day instead of up to your neck in grief."

"We'll grab her away from you to-day--never fear!" Cappy promised him.
"I guess we'll get ours from the freight due on that cargo of steel
rails you came home with."

"You have another guess coming, Mr. Ricks. You'll not do any grabbing
to-day, for the reason that somebody else has already grabbed her."

"Who?" chorused Cappy and Skinner.

"The United States Marshal. Half an hour ago the Pacific Shipping
Company libeled her."

"What for, you bonehead? You haven't any cause for libel, so how can you
make it stick?"

"The Pacific Shipping Company has cause, and it can make the libel
stick. The first mate of the Tillicum assigned to the Pacific Shipping
Company his claim for wages as mate--"

"Matt, you poor goose! The Pacific Shipping Company OWE him his wages.
Your dink of a company chartered the boat, and we will not pay such a
ridiculous claim."

"I do not care whether you do or not. That libel will keep you from
canceling my charter, although when you failed to cancel when I failed
to make the payments as stipulated, your laxity must be regarded in the
eyes of the law as evidence that you voluntarily waived that clause in
the charter; and after you have voluntarily waived a thing twice you'll
have a job making it stick the third time."

"If I had only known!" groaned Skinner miserably.

"Besides," Matt continued brightly, "I have a cargo in that vessel,
and she's under charter to my company at six hundred dollars a day.
Of course you know very well, Mr. Ricks, that while the United States
Marshal remains in charge of her I cannot discharge an ounce of that
cargo or move the ship, or--er--anything. Well, naturally that will be
no fault of the Pacific Shipping Company, Mr. Ricks. It will be up to
the Blue Star Navigation Company to file a bond and lift that libel in
order that I may have some use of the ship I have chartered from you.
If you do not pull the plaster off of her of course I'll have to sue you
for heavy damages; and I can refuse to pay you any moneys due you."

"We'll lift the libel in an hour," Mr. Skinner declared dramatically;
and he took down the telephone to call up the attorney for the Blue
Star.

"Wait!" said Matt. "I'm not through. Before I entered the harbor I
called all hands up on the boat deck and explained matters to them. They
had be