Dan confessed that he could carry any amount of cargo of this kind and then, between bites of a home-made doughnut, spoke very earnestly:
"Bart ought to go North to school, mother, and I will tell him so and back you up for all I'm worth. It will do him good to break away from home. And Uncle Jim Wetherly will put up the same line of argument to Mrs. Pringle whenever you say the word."
"Jim is my dearest brother, but I can't picture him as showing very much excitement about Bart's education," she responded. "He thinks there's no finer thing in the world than to be master and owner of a sea-going tow-boat. Why do you think he will be interested, Dan?"
Her son took her hand in his hard, sun-burned paw and with a stammering effort began his confession of all that he had heard and seen after Jerry Pringle and the English ship-master had been run down in their small boat. The mother listened with wide-eyed astonishment, and then with something like indignation she cried:
"Why, Dan, you ought to be writing novels for a living! That poor Captain Bruce of the Kenilworth was out of his head, and you know that Jerry Pringle has a sour, gruff way with him even when he's on dry land. I can't believe it of Mary Pringle's husband. It is a dreadful thing to suspect him of, plotting to wreck a fine, big steamer."
"That's just like a woman," declared Dan with a very grown-up air of wisdom. "Mrs. Pringle hasn't anything to do with it. And you are like Uncle Jim, always refusing to think other folks are a bit less square and decent than you are. Ask him to-night what he thinks about it, but don't breathe a word to anybody else, will you?"
"I shall scold him for putting such silly ideas in your head," firmly announced Mrs. Frazier. "You couldn't have pieced this plot together all by yourself, even if you are as big and strong as a young tow-boat."
"All right," said Dan good-humoredly. "Only I hope Barton will go away to school before the explosion happens. For if I'm right, Jerry Pringle may be in disgrace before he's a year older. Captain Jim will never let up on him if the Kenilworth does happen to be stranded on the Reef."
When Captain Wetherly strolled in after supper, his sister began at once to cross-question him. He evaded her as far as possible and finally declared:
"I knew that Dan would tell you. I don't want him to keep anything from his mother. But it must go no farther than this. I will say this much, that when the Kenilworth is due in the Florida Straits on her next voyage outward bound, the Resolute will be a good deal less than a thousand miles away. And just for curiosity I have cabled to London to find out if she is really chartered to Vera Cruz for her next voyage, and what kind of a reputation her owners bear. They may be interested in losing her, do you see?