"Well," said his father, "as a matter of fact I'm not going to do anything—not at present. I could call in reserves, but I'm not going to. I'm going to work this thing out myself. And, mind you, although I'm not a boasting man, I'm going to make someone pay heavily for that licking I got."
"That's the talk," approved Dare. "And as to reserves, why, you've got Ben and myself."
"And very good reserves too," said the captain, his eyes twinkling, "but I don't think I can use them at present."
"You'll be givin' us a rayson, cap'n, no doubt," said Ben, while Dare checked his disappointment as it was about to find expression.
"Yes, Ben, I will," said the captain affably. "To be frank, at present there's absolutely nothing we can do in Saltern. Those chaps are too much on their guard. We've got to play a waiting game. We must wait, as I said before, until somebody talks or the smugglers make a slip. Meanwhile, about all we can do at the moment is to prevent stuff coming in openly, as I'm assured it did in Johnson's time."
"But why can't Ben and I go on with the work where you dropped it?" protested Dare. "I'm a good wood scout if I do say it myself, and Ben can smell a whiskey bottle a mile away, as you know."
"Agreed," said the captain. "But I'm not going to have you two get a dose of the medicine they gave me. And that's all that would happen if you attempted to play my game at present. It's useless, as I've said. You wouldn't be a mile along the Spaleen road before every smuggler in the district would know you were coming. I could, as I've said, call up enough reserves to search the woods and the cliff-head adequately. But I don't want to do that. The time for reserves is when we've discovered the cache ourselves, and can plan a coup that will catch the beggars red-handed.
"No, the thing to do is to play at patience. I've got two weeks or more of enforced leisure in which to think out a plan, and I promise you that at the end of that time things will begin to happen."
"Two weeks!" exclaimed Dare ruefully.
"It may seem a long time to wait for action, but it will soon pass," consoled the captain.