Nick Carter Stories No. 137, April 24, 1915: The Seal of Gijon; Or, Nick Carter's Ice-House Fight — John Shaqi
Nick Carter Stories No. 137, April 24, 1915: The Seal of Gijon; Or, Nick Carter's Ice-House FightCarter, Nicholas (House name)
General
Nick Carter Stories No. 137, April 24, 1915: The Seal of Gijon; Or, Nick Carter's Ice-House Fight
Carter, Nicholas (House name)
Detective and mystery stories, American -- Periodicals; Popular literature -- Periodicals
“I have it! They took me down the river a little. Then they crossed.
The choppy waves are at the sides of the river, and the long ones in
the middle. That’s how I know they took me across. Yes, by George!
There’s another thing! We got in the way of a ferryboat and might have
been run down. I’d forgotten that.”
How Chick became aware of that incident, with a bag tied over his
head and shoulders, lying in the bottom of the boat, can be logically
explained.
He had heard the screeching of the ferryboat’s siren, responded to by
the toot of the power boat. Then there had been a great deal of hoarse
language--profane, probably--followed by a jolting of the motor boat
as it was swung around so sharply that it might have upset, followed
by comparative quiet and the steady coughing of the motor as they went
along.
“If we hadn’t been in the middle of the river we should not have been
likely to get in the way of a ferry,” was the way Chick figured it out.
“Well, that means that we came over to Hoboken, or somewhere along the
Jersey side of the river, where a small boat could land. Of course! I
get it now! It’s all an open book!”
He slapped one hand on his knee and actually grinned. He was in a bad
fix, and he knew it. But the thought that he had unraveled a problem,
perhaps as well as it could have been done by Nick Carter himself, gave
him such satisfaction that, for the moment, he cared for nothing else.
“I was yanked out of the boat and put in a motor car,” he continued
half audibly. “Very well! Before I got into the automobile I had to
climb up a hill. That makes it all the more binding. I know the roads
at the top of the hill, and I would bet a hundred dollars that I’m in
the Hackensack meadows somewhere.”
A few minutes more of cogitation, and Chick had decided in what part of
the meadows he was.
“I know a big ice house about halfway between Hoboken and Carlstadt,”
he muttered. “It’s out in the marshes, but you can see it from the
road. Of course! That’s it! I was taken in a boat from the motor car.
They rowed me along some of the creeks between the grass swamps, maybe
through some of them. Anyhow, I can guess where I am. Now, let me see
about getting out.”
Chick uttered this last sentence with perfect coolness and confidence.
He had no fear of being kept a prisoner for long, especially with his
hands and feet free.
That Prince Marcos had been kidnapped at the same time as himself he
had no idea.
It had seemed to Chick that his own capture was the logical result of
the activity of Nick Carter and himself in helping Marcos to escape the
clutches of Solado and Miguel.
The cunning rascals would know that so long as these two clear-sighted,
quick-acting detectives were at large, they could not expect to carry
out their purpose of holding Prince Marcos away from his own country
until they had carried out their treacherous purpose of practically
giving it away to another government.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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