"By one thing and another I had my attention turned from the coast to what is known as the Spaleen road. This is a cross-country road linking Saltern to Spaleen, and running beyond Saltern to Shagtown, Tarnish, etc., farther round the Bay. It seemed to me there was a great deal of traffic on this road between Spaleen and Saltern. I knew, of course, that the people used it a great deal for the purpose of farming small patches of land in the district, and to cart fire-wood from the hills. But that did not seem to me to account for the large amount of traffic.
"I made up my mind I'd keep a closer watch on it. One day I took up a stand on a small hill overlooking the road three miles from the town, and with the aid of a pair of binoculars spied on all who passed. And I had a piece of luck; for I'd not been there an hour when I saw two horse-drawn carts meet and stop. The men driving them engaged in conversation, and I actually saw a bottle which I dare say contained whiskey change hands, and also a package which looked suspiciously like a box of tobacco.
"Of course, that was a very slight exchange, and I might easily have been mistaken in the articles passed, but I didn't think so then, and later something occurred which proved, or at least made me feel certain, that I was right.
"I began to puzzle out where the traffic had its head. Spaleen, I thought, was too far away to be considered practicable, seeing that the smugglers could have their cache so much nearer Saltern and the centre of Saltern Bay. I decided to examine a road map before I made any further investigations, and returned to town.
"That same day I located a road map in the office and discovered what I might have expected, that the Spaleen road was a devious one, and at two points it approached to within a few miles of the coast between Spaleen and Saltern.
"One of the points was near Spaleen, the other in the neighbourhood of Saltern. I fixed upon the latter as being relative to my suspicions. I suspected the smugglers of having a cache somewhere on the coast near Saltern and that the back-door of this cache gave upon the Spaleen road, which could be made to serve admirably the needs of distribution, as there was a great deal of traffic on it daily and movement of any kind would not be liable to excite the curiosity and suspicion of those who, either by nature of their profession or their sympathies, were antipathetic to the trade.
"The thing I had to do was to prove my suspicion well founded. But the trouble was, how? It's harder to escape observation on a country road than in a city street. I couldn't very well go in the daytime without my every movement being watched. And it was little use looking for a track to the coast on a dark night—and the nights have been particularly dark lately. The only thing to do was to compromise, and set out at dawn, when there were few people stirring. And that's what I did.
"Well, to cut a long story short, I was about four miles from the town and passing a wood when a gang sprang up from nowhere, and jumping on me from behind had me at their mercy before I could strike a blow or even turn upon them.
"They didn't trouble to tie me up but hit out with their boots, and one of them lay about him with a heavy stick. I thought they were going to finish me, but just before I lost my senses I heard one of them shout: 'Don't kill him; Payter said only make him wish he was dead!'"
Both Dare and Ben broke out into indignant speech at healing this, then allowed the captain to finish.