It was hardly ten minutes later when Patsy came again into the library. But, rapid as he had been in his movements, he had not been able to beat his chief. Nick Carter was already in the room, dressed in about the same kind of clothes as he had told his assistant to put on. That is, he wore a heavy leather coat, with pockets of various sizes all over it, a cap that hid most of his face, and rubber boots which came up to his hips. He carried a handsome repeating shotgun--light, but deadly, in the hands of a sure shot like the detective. Glancing at himself in a mirror, Nick was satisfied that he would not be easily recognized. To make sure, he put on a heavy beard and mustache, with the result that he did not look any more like the real Nick Carter, than he did like Mrs. Pankhurst. “Keep your cap well down, Patsy,” he directed. “Your face is not well known to these people we are going after. But some of them may have seen you.” “What’s the plan of campaign?” asked Patsy, as they crossed in a ferryboat to Hoboken. “That will develop as we go on,” replied Nick. “Here’s a street car that will take us across the meadows--or as far as we want to go.” The Hackensack meadows cover a very wide expanse in New Jersey, a little way back from the bay and Hudson River. They are called “meadows.” Really, they are marshes over most of their extent, and duck shooting and fishing are the uses most people make of them. There are solid spreads of ground here and there, and several lines of railroad cross and recross them. As a rule, however, the meadows are decidedly sloppy, and as the water that floods them comes from the sea, everything is salt about them. The grass cut from these meadows is used mainly for bedding for cattle. As fodder it is useless. It was at a dreary, desolate spot in the middle of the marshes that Nick Carter got off the car, with Patsy Garvan, and waited in the road as the car went spinning away farther into the back country. “We’ll get a boat here, Patsy,” said Nick. This was soon arranged. There was a boathouse close by, and from it any one could hire a flat-bottomed rowboat, warranted not to capsize easily, in which the occupant could penetrate the high grass, and thus lie in wait for ducks as long as suited him. He could fish, too, if he liked. There is a great deal of fish in the waters of the meadows, and it is a favorite resort for anglers, as well as duck hunters. It was a dull day, and there was a heavy fog. But that was not enough to discourage an enthusiastic duck hunter, as Nick remarked to the boat owner before they started. He did not tell that smiling individual that fog was just what he wanted, although, if he had, he would have been telling the exact truth. “Do you see that barn over there, Patsy?” he asked, when they were well among the reeds and rushes. “It’s a big one, over to the right.” “An ice house, isn’t it?” was Patsy’s response.