The S.S. Lion, eh? Why, that was one of Cappy Ricks' vessels! He
remembered passing her off Cape Flattery once and seeing the Blue Star
house flag fluttering at the fore.
"Were they Lake boats originally?" he queried.
Mr. Hayes nodded.
"What are they doing out here?"
"Right after the San Francisco fire, when fir lumber jumped from a
twelve-dollar base to twenty-five, lumber freights soared
accordingly," Hayes explained. "Vessels that had been making a little
money at four dollars a thousand feet, from Oregon and Washington
ports to San Francisco, were enabled to get ten dollars; and anything
that would float was hauled out of the bone yard and put to work. Old
Man Ricks, of the Blue Star Navigation Company, was the first to see
the handwriting on the wall; so he sneaked East and bought the Lion
and the Unicorn. It was just the old cuss's luck to have a lot of
cash on hand; and he bought them cheap, loaded them with general cargo
in New York, and paid a nice dividend on them on their very first
voyage under the Blue Star flag. When he got them on the Coast he put
them into the lumber trade and they paid for themselves within a year.
"Then, just before the panic of 1907, old Ricks unloaded the Unicorn
on the Black Butte Company for ten thousand dollars more than he paid
for her--the old scamp! He's the shrewdest trader on the whole
Pacific Coast.
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