THE ICE HOUSE IN THE SWAMP.
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.
“It was at one time, but it hasn’t been used for that purpose lately.
Do you see some smoke coming from the chimney at this end?”
“By jing! I do! Is there somebody living in there!”
“I should say so, if there is a fire in the place. If I am not much
mistaken, we shall find certain gentlemen in that building who know me.
They may know you, too. That I am not so sure about.”
“Do you mean that you think Chick is in there?” asked Patsy, who had
been turning things over in his mind. “Is that the idea?”
“I don’t know about that. But I do think there may be somebody in the
place that I want to find. Of course, I want to find Chick. But I do
not fear that he is in trouble. The person I am after is called Prince
Marcos----”
“What? Is it that Marcos case we’re on?” broke in Patsy. “I thought
he’d gone back to his own country, wherever it is. You said so a few
days ago. At least, you said he was going.”
“That was a week ago,” Nick Carter reminded him. “Before I had anything
to do with the case. Now I know better. He is in New York, somewhere,
and I have to find him.”
“I wish I knew a little more about the case,” grumbled Patsy. “That
would make it easier for me to work.”
“I don’t know that it would make it any easier,” was Nick Carter’s dry
rejoinder. “You know that all I require of you as a rule is to obey
orders--unless you are on a case by yourself.”
“That’s so,” rejoined Patsy, with a sly grin. “But I’ve heard you say
that no rule should be so iron bound that it cannot be twisted when the
occasion calls for it. All I would like to know, if you see fit to tell
me, is what we are after.”
Patsy Garvan was not sure in what way his chief would receive this
rebellious protest. He was relieved, therefore, when he saw Nick smile.
“I’ll tell you that much,” conceded the detective: “There is a man
called Miguel and another named Solado who are trying to prevent Prince
Marcos getting back to his own country by the eighteenth. I believe
they are holding Marcos in this old ice house.”
“And what about Chick?” asked Patsy.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think he is in this place, too?”
“He may be. We are going to find out.”
“That’s the talk,” responded Patsy. “Let’s hurry! How are you going to
get in? Knock at the front door?”
“Hardly!” said Nick. “You see that window at the top of the building?
It is a door, in fact, boarded up.”
“Yes.”
“And you see the chute from it to the water? That is where they used to
draw up the ice when it was brought here in boats. They did not get ice
from these salt meadows, of course. But there are fresh-water streams
not far away, and the ice was brought from them and stored here, handy
to send to Jersey City and Hoboken.”
“Well?” asked Patsy.
“I am going up that chute.”
“You’ll be seen, won’t you?”
“Not likely. In the first place, there is a heavy fog, and, secondly,
the windows in the living portion of the building are on the other
side.”
“You seem to know a great deal about this old ice house,” observed
Patsy.
“I do. This is not the first time I’ve looked it over. I should have
made an investigation here soon, even if there had been no Prince
Marcos case.”
Patsy Garvan would have liked to ask why. But he felt that he had
catechized his chief about as much as was safe. So he held back his
curiosity and prepared to obey orders.
“Row the boat right up to that chute, Patsy.”
“All right! But it doesn’t reach down to the water.”
“I see that. It does not matter. I can reach the bottom of it when I
stand up in the boat.”
Watched by the wondering Patsy, Nick Carter waited till the
flat-bottomed boat had run directly under the end of the chute. Then
he caught the chute and tested its strength as well as he could while
standing in the wabbly little craft.
The chute was supported by strong iron rods that extended from the
wooden wall, keeping it at the proper angle, so that it was easy to
slide the blocks of ice upward by means of a block and tackle.
As Nick Carter had said, the building was capacious enough to
accommodate many tons of ice, and it had been used as a storehouse for
a long time.
Of later years, when facilities for handling ice were better, and when
large corporations controlled the industry, there was no room for this
small concern to continue in business.
So they had sold out, and the storehouse had been empty for years until
within the past few months.
So, when a tenant offered himself, the owner of the building--who had
almost forgotten that it was in existence--was only too glad to accept
a nominal rental.
Who the tenant was Nick Carter had found out within the last
twenty-four hours, and for that reason when he discovered the cake of
mud, with salt grass embedded in it, he had not much doubt that he
would be able to find Prince Marcos if he followed this clew.
“What are you going to do?” asked Patsy.
“That will depend on what I find when I get to the top of the chute.
Keep the boat well hidden in the rushes as soon as I am out of it.”
Patsy nodded. Then he gave his chief a hoist to help him into the
bottom of the chute, and watched admiringly to see Nick Carter making
his way up the treacherous runway, partly on the tips of his toes and
partly on hands and knees.
At the top was a closed door. The fastening was not difficult, and as
Patsy backed his boat into a thicket of long grass, he saw Nick Carter
open the door and go in.
For ten minutes Patsy watched the door, but no one came out, and there
was no sound from within.
“I’ll wait here a little while. Then I’ll go in after him,” declared
Patsy to himself.