NICK CARTER
STORIES
_Issued Weekly. Entered as Second-class Matter at the
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Copyright, 1915, by_ STREET & SMITH.
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No. 137. NEW YORK, April 24, 1915. =Price Five Cents.=
THE SEAL OF GIJON;
Or, NICK CARTER’S ICE-HOUSE FIGHT.
Edited by CHICKERING CARTER.
CHAPTER I.
SLIPPED AWAY.
“Look out! You’ll run us down!”
The response was a growling oath, as the heavy launch came on, full
speed, straight across the river.
Nick Carter, sitting at the wheel of another craft of the same type,
saw the danger, even before his assistant shouted this warning.
“Keep quiet, Chick!” he ordered, in his calm tones. “I’ll make it!”
The famous detective had handled motor boats before, and he knew he
could dodge the erratic craft cutting across his bows, unless the other
man changed his course at the crucial moment.
They were abreast of Yonkers, and at that point the lordly Hudson is
swift, as well as wide.
The launch coming across the river had suddenly appeared from the
shadow of the Palisades, apparently bound straight for the busy city on
the opposite shore.
In it were three men.
The one at the wheel, who appeared to be in general command, had a
square, bulldog sort of face, with heavy jaw, outstanding ears, and
other features that make more for physical determination than beauty.
Another man, who scowled at Nick Carter and Chick with an evil
intentness that made the latter long to jump on him and have it out
there and then, sat in the stern and whispered something in the ear of
the engineer.
This second man was lean of face and evidently long of body. He had
deep-set, unwinking eyes, and a square face at the bottom which
suggested that he was at enmity with most of his kind.
With it all, there was a restless cunning in the far-buried eyes which
made him even more unpleasant to contemplate than the man to whom he
was whispering.
As if to counterbalance to some extent the preponderance of brutal
humanity in the launch, the third passenger was a rather small, slight
young man, who looked hardly old enough to vote. His face was pale and
his eyes had a gentle, appealing expression, almost like that of a very
innocent, unsophisticated girl.
Appearances are deceitful very often. So let it be stated at once that
this gentle young fellow, barely out of his teens, and whose voice
was as mild as his looks, was none other than Pet Carlin, one of the
cruelest, most unscrupulous gangsters in New York City.
Carlin’s name was supposed to be Peter. That had been shortened by his
associates to “Pete.” Afterward the final “e” had been clipped off,
because of his inoffensive appearance and manner, and he was known as
“Pet.”
Nick Carter shut off his power, and manipulated the wheel carefully, as
he saw that the man in the other boat was recklessly driving straight
toward him.
There was only a narrow margin for the two launches to pass each
other, but it would have been done successfully had not the stranger
deliberately turned his wheel just as Nick Carter was gliding past in
safety by the most skillful management of his helm.
“Larry!” exclaimed Pet, in a startled tone.
He was staring hard at the two passengers in Nick Carter’s boat--two
men who wore handcuffs on their wrists--and a quick look of recognition
had passed back to him.
“What?” growled the man at the wheel, Larry Dugan. “What’s biting yer,
Pet?”
“Look!”
All three of the men in the launch gazed at the two handcuffed men, and
all three expressed their astonishment in low grunts.
“Get ’em!” whispered the man behind the steersman--he of the deep-set,
cunning eyes. “We’ve got to do it!”
It was just as this was said that the collision came.
The launch coming across the river headed straight for the middle of
the other. Only because Nick Carter swung his wheel around, thus
receiving a glancing blow, instead of one head-on, was his boat saved
from being cut in two.
As it was, the two launches hung motionless for a moment, as two men
might before they fell after receiving a mortal blow.
Then, as Nick gave another quick turn to his wheel, and at the same
time opened the throttle, he slid past the other launch and was free,
in the open water.
It was only for a moment, however.
The detective had seen, at the first glance, that the launch occupied
by the three forbidding-looking men was superior to his own in the case
with which it could be manipulated.
It was narrower in the beam, and the engine was more powerful. Besides,
it answered to its helm more smoothly and promptly than his own.
Nevertheless, as Nick Carter, in that short instant, managed to get a
full view of the faces of the men, he recognized them all. Also, he saw
that they knew his two handcuffed passengers.
Further proof of this came at once, when, as Nick swung his launch
clear, the man at the wheel of the other boat, with a snarl, twisted
his wheel and again brought the two launches against each other,
parallel, with a crash.
“Look out, Chick! Hold the gunwale of that other boat!” shouted Nick
Carter. “Don’t let them get away!”
“I should say not!” was Chick’s response. “Don’t you see who they are?”
“Of course I do!” shouted back Nick Carter. “That fellow at the wheel
is Larry Dugan.”
The detective had seen that three of the worst ruffians in New
York--men who could be hired to beat, or even kill, a man, for
pay--were in the launch, and he could not keep a horrible suspicion
out of his mind which implicated Don Solado and Prince Miguel, his two
handcuffed prisoners.
It was Nick Carter’s determination now to catch the three thugs. He had
little doubt that they had been hired by Solado and Miguel to make away
with a man they wanted to keep out of sight, for a time at least.
The man’s name was Prince Marcos.
In this supposition he was right. But he did not give the rascals
credit for quite so much audacity as they possessed.
As Nick reached over the sides of the two launches which were rubbing
against each other, and grabbed the man nearest to him, who happened to
be Pet Carlin, there was a loud shout from Chick.
“Look out, chief! They’re getting our men!”
The launches sprang violently apart, and Nick was obliged to let go of
Pet to save himself from going overboard.
With his throttle wide open, sending the boat along at full speed, Nick
swung around in pursuit of the other craft.
He had special reason to do this now, for, as Chick had warned him,
the trio of ruffians had actually snatched away Don Solado and Prince
Miguel, his handcuffed prisoners, under his very nose.
Only the fact that Nick had been hampered by his position at the wheel
and the levers of the engine had enabled the rascals to be successful.
It was impossible for the detectives to move quickly--even if it had
been safe to leave the launch to its own devices. He was obliged to
keep his hand on the steering wheel, and to see that the engine was not
running wild.
Larry Dugan, Foxey, and Pet all understood this, and they had taken
instant advantage of the odds in their favor.
Pulling the two prisoners from one boat to the other, they had allowed
them to lie down in the bottom, while Dugan, with a skill equal to Nick
Carter’s own, had sent his launch full speed toward the wharves and
tangle of shipping that one always sees on the water front of Yonkers.
It was the multitude of craft of all kinds hiding the wharves that gave
the three thugs their advantage.
Larry Dugan was unusually skillful in handling the launch, and he had
a long start of Nick Carter before the latter could get his launch
around, headed for shore.
It was broad daylight, but there was a bone-racking fog on the river,
and it hid the escaping boat even as it plunged in among the anchored
shipping and big lumber barges that stretched for a quarter of a mile,
at least.
“They can’t be far away,” said Nick, as he pushed his launch along.
“Keep a bright lookout, Chick!”
“All right!”
But the rascals knew this part of the river and the peculiarities of
the water front of Yonkers as well as did Nick Carter, and they got
clear away.
The fog helped them materially. They might never have dodged the
pursuing boat otherwise.
The detective also knew Yonkers. But, because he did know it, he was
quite aware that it would not be so very difficult for Larry Dugan to
elude him, especially with the fog to help.
“They’ve beaten us, chief!” grumbled Chick, a quarter of an hour later.
“They’ve gone along inside this line of barges and shot out at the end.
While we have been poking about here, they’ve headed down the river.”
“I think you’re right, Chick,” conceded Nick. “They’d hardly go up the
river, of course. Well, we’ll go down, too. We’ve lost our prisoners,
but I don’t care so much for that if they don’t get hold of Prince
Marcos.”
“What is all this about Prince Marcos?” asked Chick. “I don’t think I
have ever got the story straight, in spite of all I’ve heard.”
“It can be told in a few words,” answered Nick. “Prince Marcos is the
hereditary ruler of Joyalita, a small monarchy near the Caribbean Sea.
He is a decent fellow, from all I’ve seen of him.”
“Yes, I understand that,” was Chick’s quiet comment.
“Well, there is a party of grafters in Joyalita who would like the
country, such as it is, to be annexed to another one adjoining. That
would probably throw Prince Marcos out, and his Cousin Miguel who has
just got away from us on that boat, would be made provisional ruler.”
“I see. Miguel would get Marcos’ job. But what is this about Marcos
wanting to get home by the eighteenth?”
“If he gets to Joyalita on or before that date, he will be able to use
his power to prevent the annexation.”
“By a casting vote?” asked Chick.
“No. As head of the country and government, he won’t have to vote. His
word controls the situation.”
“What they call a royal prerogative in Europe, eh?”
“Yes.”
“And this other citizen in the handcuffs, Don Solado--where does he
come in?”
“He is prime minister, and he is on the side of Miguel.”
“It’s all clear enough to me now,” remarked Chick. “Don Solado and
Miguel are trying to hold Marcos here till it will be too late for him
to stop this big grafting annexation?”
“Exactly! We shall have to work like Trojans now to enable Marcos to
win. I’ve pledged myself to do it, however, and we shall have to manage
it, somehow,” was Nick Carter’s steady conclusion, as he turned the
launch downstream. “We have Larry Dugan and his crowd against us, as
well as Solado and Miguel. That will make it harder. But we can beat
the gang if we stick to it.”
“We’ll stick to it, all right!” responded Chick, with that determined
note in his voice which his chief knew meant business.
“That’s what I like to hear, Chick. It won’t be an easy task, but we
have simply got to get Prince Marcos to Joyalita by the eighteenth of
this month.”
“You bet!” added Chick.