Nick Carter smiled, without letting the girl see his face. This was not difficult, for his back was turned toward her. He knew that lights on the Hudson were common enough, and that it was a hundred chances to one against this particular light belonging to the yacht they were after. He swung the boat diagonally across the river to see. “It isn’t a yacht at all,” he remarked, in a low tone, to the girl. “Just a barge, loaded with broken stone--to ballast the railroad over here, I guess. We’ll have to go farther.” As they were on that side of the river, in the shadow of the Palisades, Nick kept his launch parallel with the bank, taking note of all the lights he saw, but not finding any that belonged to the kind of steam yacht he wanted to find. They got to the end of the fifteen miles of Palisades, and found themselves moving along opposite the irregular hills and bluffs one sees farther up the river. Houses nestle among the hills at intervals, and many dusty ribbons of roadway may be discerned criss-crossed here and there, peeping out of thickets, twisting around the shoulder of a hill, or coming seemingly straight out of the ground. The scenery along the Hudson is generally diversified and always beautiful. Suddenly a fair-sized house appeared to jump from the blackness of a wooded slope they were passing, with lights in some of the windows. “That’s a pleasant-looking home,” observed Nick Carter, as he kept his wheel steady while glancing at the shore on his left. “Within easy motoring distance of New York, and yet out in the country entirely.” The girl said something quietly in assent. Then she broke out, in a tense tone: “Isn’t that the yacht we want? It looks different from the others we have seen, and it agrees with the description we got from Phillips so far as I can make out.” “You’re right, I think,” returned Nick, in a low tone. “But don’t speak loud. If that is the yacht, we may be sure they are on the watch for attack. They will think the police may hear of their performance at Crownledge. That would naturally mean pursuit.” He ran the launch silently toward shore, the maneuver bringing the outline of the yacht between him and the faint moonlight showing in the sky. “I see a man in a chair on the roof of the cabin,” he whispered. “He is smoking.” “You have good eyes, Mr. Carter,” remarked the girl. “I don’t see anything on the yacht at all.” “The red light of his cigar appears now and again, as he shifts his position,” explained the detective. “Now I catch the odor of the cigar. The wind is blowing this way. Don’t you get the Havana fragrance? It is very faint, but it is there.” But Claudia’s senses were not as keen as Nick Carter’s. She could neither see nor smell the cigar. Nick ran the launch up to the bank, and found a small landing stage, with several iron rings.