The captain returned at noon on Tuesday, and at two o’clock the last bundle of shingles was out of the Quickstep, for the mate had worked overtime Monday night in order that they might finish discharging early enough on Tuesday afternoon to drop down to Oleum and take on fuel oil for the next voyage.  This schedule would bring them to the dock at San Francisco about six o’clock, where they would take on stores and passengers and sail at seven for Eureka, on Humboldt Bay, where they would arrive Wednesday night.  On Thursday they would commence taking on cargo, but since they had to take shingles from several mills round the bay, they were bound to be delayed waiting for tides to get in and out, and in all probability they would not be loaded and at sea until Saturday night, which would give them Sunday at sea—­and in the lumber trade on the Pacific Coast the only profitable way to spend Sunday is to spend it at sea.  To spend it in port is a day lost, with the crew loafing and drawing full pay for it.  The mate explained to Matt that Captain Kjellin would drive them hard to maintain this schedule, for he prized his job as master of the Quickstep, and had a reputation for speed and efficiency with his owners which he was anxious to maintain.

Despite their best efforts, however, the vessel was doomed to fall behind her schedule.  At Oleum they found the oil dock lined with vessels taking on fuel, and in consequence were forced to wait two hours for a berth; seeing which the captain went ashore and telephoned his owners that he would be unable to get to the dock in San Francisco until about eight o’clock.  Consequently, Mr. Skinner, realizing that the passengers their agent had booked for the Quickstep, by reason of the cut-rates prevailing on lumber steamers, would not wait on the dock until the Quickstep should arrive, instructed the captain to lay over in San Francisco all night and put to sea at nine o’clock Wednesday morning.  In the meantime he said he would send a clerk down to the dock to notify the waiting passengers of the unavoidable change in schedule.

Promptly at eight o’clock Wednesday morning the Quickstep got away from the dock.  The minute she was fairly out the Golden Gate, however, she poked her nose into a stiff nor’west gale; and as she was bound north and was empty, this gale, catching her on the port counter, caused her to roll and pitch excessively, and cut her customary speed of ten miles an hour down to five.  Every passenger aboard was soon desperately seasick, and off Point Reyes so violently did the Quickstep pitch that even some members of the crew became nauseated, among them Matt Peasley.  He had never been seasick before and he was ashamed of himself now, notwithstanding the fact that he knew even the hardiest old seadogs are not proof against mal-de-mer under certain extraordinary conditions.  Captain Kjellin, coming up on the bridge during Matt’s watch, found the latter doing the most unseamanlike thing imaginable.  Caught in a paroxysm at the weather end of the bridge, Matt, in his agony, was patronizing the weather rail!  The captain heard him squawk, and ducked to avoid what instinct told him the gale would bring him his way.