Each annual inspection threatened to be her last, and Captain
Scraggs, her sole owner, lived in perpetual fear that eventually
the day must arrive when, to save the lives of himself and his
crew, he would be forced to ship a new boiler and renew the
rotten timbers around her deadwood. She had come into Captain
Scraggs's possession at public auction conducted by the United
States Marshal, following her capture as she sneaked into San
Francisco Bay one dark night with a load of Chinamen and opium
from Ensenada. She had cost him fifteen hundred hard-earned
dollars.
Scraggs--Phineas P. Scraggs, to employ his full name, was
precisely the kind of man one might expect to own and operate the
_Maggie_. Rat-faced, snaggle toothed and furtive, with a low
cunning that sometimes passed for great intelligence, Scraggs'
character is best described in a homely American word. He was
"ornery." A native of San Francisco, he had grown up around the
docks and had developed from messboy on a river steamer to master
of bay and river steamboats, although it is not of record that he
ever commanded such a craft. Despite his "ticket" there was none
so foolish as to trust him with one--a condition of affairs which
had tended to sour a disposition not naturally sweet.
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