“Gee! That’s a good sound!” ejaculated Patsy. “All right, chief! I’ll be responsible for these three beauties. Now that I know Chick is all to the good, I could handle two gangs of this size. Trust me!” Nick hurriedly rowed to the place where he had hired the boat, and, in the comfortable home of the man who owned the place, soon had Chick on his feet again--shaky, but otherwise all right. “I’ll leave you here to-night, if you like, Chick,” said Nick, after a short conference with the boat owner. “He says he can take care of you until morning. We have to ride on the street car, you know. There won’t be one along for an hour, anyhow.” “By that time I’ll be fit as a fiddle,” declared Chick. “Let me go with you.” “Say, chief!” asked Patsy, who was standing guard over the three disgruntled gangsters, in company with Marcos. “What became of those two other guys from Joyalita?” “I can tell you that,” put in Marcos gravely. “They have got away. They had a motor car here, and when we were occupied in looking after Dugan and his men, and trying to help Mr. Carter find Chick in that warehouse, they took advantage of nobody watching them. That is all. So long as they cannot prevent my reaching Joyalita, I am not particular about going after them. The man Jason must have died in the fire.” “You shall start for Joyalita in the morning, if you like,” smiled Nick Carter. “It looks as if we have beaten the whole plot against you.” “Thanks to you, Mr. Carter!” Prince Marcos held out his hand to the detective, while Dugan, still handcuffed to Foxey Irwin, snorted in angry disgust. “By the way, I have your watch, the Seal of Gijon,” said Nick. “I have never had an opportunity to give it to you till now.” He brought out the precious diamond-incrusted watch and jeweled fob which had been the subject of his close inspection, and about whose secret spring he was still puzzled, and handed it to Marcos. As the prince took the watch, he pressed it to his lips. Then he put it to his forehead, with a gesture of reverence. At the same time he murmured a few words in a strange tongue, that Nick Carter did not understand. Even when Marcos had hidden the watch in an inner pocket of his waistcoat, he did not speak for a minute, at least. It seemed as if there were a sacred significance attached to the Seal of Gijon which made it sacrilege to talk on outside matters for a short period after handling the precious emblem. It was more than an hour before a street car came bowling along the lonely road which ran through the meadows, and which might have been a thousand miles from a city, judging by its desolate appearance, instead of only a few miles from the metropolis itself. The conductor was a stolid individual, and when he saw that there were three handcuffed men pushed into the car ahead of four other men--for Chick had recovered sufficiently to go along with his friends--he only wondered what the trio had been pinched for, and let it go at that.