"I'd toss every case into the sea first," cried White, "and everything the factory contains besides."
"'Same here,' as the Englishman said; but I guess we can do better than that. Why not accept Captain Bland's offer, and trade it to him for groceries?"
"I thought you were opposed to receiving smuggled goods?"
"So I am on general principles," admitted Cabot, "but circumstances alter cases. I consider the highway robbery that two of the most powerful nations of the world are attempting right here a circumstance strong enough to alter any case. So I would advise you to accept the only offer now remaining open. You will at least get enough groceries to keep your family supplied for a year."
"I should say so, and for two years more, provided the goods didn't spoil."
"Then you might sell what you couldn't use."
"Where?" asked White. "Not in Newfoundland, for they would be seized as contraband in any part of the island. Besides, you seem to forget that as both of us are liable to arrest, we are hardly in a position to go into the grocery business just at present."
"That's so. Well, then, why not carry them somewhere else in the 'Sea Bee'? To Canada, or—I have it! You said something once about making a trading trip to Labrador, and now is the very opportunity. Why shouldn't we take the goods to Labrador? I don't believe we'd be arrested in that country, even for smuggling, and they must need a lot of provisions up there. It's the very thing, and the sooner we can arrange to be off the better."
"But you don't want to go to Labrador," protested White.
"Don't I? There's where you make a big mistake; for I do want to go to Labrador more than to any other place I know of. Also I would rather go there with you in the 'Sea Bee' than in any other company, or by any other conveyance. So there you are, and if you don't invite me to start for Labrador before that brass-bound navy chap has a chance to arrest me, I shall consider myself a victim of misplaced confidence."