A Little Matter of Salvage

By Peter B. Kyne

"A Little Matter of Salvage" by Peter B. Kyne. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Dec 8, 2020
• ISBN: 4064066424404

Peter B. Kyne

A native of San Francisco, Peter B. Kyne was a prolific screenwriter and the author of the 1920 bestseller Kindred of the Dust. His stories of Cappy Ricks and the Rick's Logging & Lumbering Company were serialized in The Saturday Evening Post and William Randolph Hearst's Cosmopolitan magazine. He died in 1957.

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Peter B. Kyne

A Little Matter of Salvage

Published by Good Press, 2020

[e-mail]

EAN 4064066424404

Table of Contents

A Little Matter of Salvage

The fighting Scotchman Hangs On

By PETER B. KYNE

LUMBER freights were decidedly off. As a matter of fact, the market had gone to pieces, and Old Hickman was disturbed. Standing before the grimy window of his private office in the faded old red-brick building in East Street, Old Hickman looked out over the waterfront- out across the bay, beyond Goat Island, to where the fleecy clouds drifted over the summit of Mount Diablo. Before him the white ferryboats surged backward and forward between the big ferry depot and the Oakland mole.

Up the bay, toward Mission Rock, an Italian cruiser swung at anchor, side by side with three big battle-ships of the Pacific squadron. Beyond the warships a score of full-rigged ships lay awaiting grain charters.

There was something in that forest of masts—in the little launches coughing to and fro between the great hulls, with their black-painted ports looming up along the gray sides—something in that grand panorama of wharf and bay and mountain that soothed and thrilled Old Hickman always. In all his busy life he had known no odor so sweet as the smell of the docks. He sniffed it now through the open window as it floated up from Howard Street bulkhead, where a whaler, just back from the South Seas, disgorged the season's catch.

To Old Hickman's money-worried soul it all whispered of life. The red, white and blue funnels of the army transports smiled at him over the roof of the transport dock. The black bulk of the dirty Norwegian collier, steaming in past Alcatraz, was always beautiful to him. Whenever harassed or worried he sought the window and gazed on life—his life—a life he had helped to create. Even now as he gazed his hard old face softened, his wizened hands ceased their restless tattoo on the window-sash. A steam schooner slipped down the bay past the dirty Norwegian collier and turned her blunt nose in toward her berth at Pier 12. Old Hickman turned from the window.

The Trinidad's in from San Pedro, he announced to the outer office. Just making up to the dock.

Young Hickman rose from his desk and joined his father at the window. He was a clean-cut, well-dressed young man, possessed of a kindly, humorous mouth and calm, gray eyes. To the casual observer Young Hickman seemed to convey the impression that the world was his oyster, which he would open at his leisure.

Just watch that Scotchman berth her against a flood tide, he said, pulling out his watch. There isn't a skipper on the coast that can handle a boat like McNaughton. He'll have her tied hard and fast in four minutes.

Old Hickman frowned. Yes, he answered irritably, and in five minutes he'll be up here with a requisition as long as original sin. That McNaughton is a good man, Johnny, but uppish, sir—very uppish. He must be taught that a steam schooner can't be run as expensively as a yacht.

The Trinidad really needs new lines, his son ventured. He'll dock her in three minutes, by George! or I'm an Indian. And look at that tide! Oh, rats! His spring line has parted.

Young Hickman laughed. That'll put Mac in a pretty temper, he said as he walked back to his desk. "Handle