A fleeting expression of annoyance passed over the patrolman's
face, and then he said, "Yes?" in an absent way, and that was all.

Charley bit his lip with suppressed anger and turned on his heel.

"Are you game, my lad?" he said to me later on in the evening, just
as we finished washing down the Reindeer's decks and were preparing
to turn in.

A lump came up in my throat, and I could only nod my head.

"Well, then," and Charley's eyes glittered in a determined way,
"we've got to capture Big Alec between us, you and I, and we've got
to do it in spite of Carmintel. Will you lend a hand?"

"It's a hard proposition, but we can do it," he added after a
pause.

"Of course we can," I supplemented enthusiastically.

And then he said, "Of course we can," and we shook hands on it and
went to bed.

But it was no easy task we had set ourselves. In order to convict
a man of illegal fishing, it was necessary to catch him in the act
with all the evidence of the crime about him--the hooks, the lines,
the fish, and the man himself. This meant that we must take Big
Alec on the open water, where he could see us coming and prepare
for us one of the warm receptions for which he was noted.