“Gee! There’s nothing slow about Jai Singh,” observed Patsy. “He’s as slick as Jay Gould ever was.”
“Are the boys all here?” asked Nick Carter.
“They are here,” was the grave response.
“They’ll have to fight,” put in Jefferson Arnold. “Have we guns enough to go around, with one for my son?”
“He can have my rifle,” answered Nick Carter. “I will depend on my revolver. It is a weapon I am used to, and I have more confidence in it than in a rifle, especially at close quarters.”
Leslie Arnold took the rifle with a smile and word or two of gratitude. As he handled it familiarly, making sure that the magazine was properly supplied with cartridges, Nick had no fear that the young man would not give a good account of himself if there should be a mix-up with his late captors.
The detective, having seen that his party were all properly armed, determined to reconnoiter before going out to meet the enemy.
Even with everybody counted in, including the two Arnolds, Adil and Jai Singh, the four coolies, himself, and his two assistants, he could muster only eleven.
Captain, the bloodhound, had been left to guard the boat. He would have made the twelfth, and Nick rather regretted he had not brought the faithful animal with him.
“Captain always makes good,” said Patsy Garvan emphatically. “He could lick six of those Bolongu citizens, and then put a crimp in the hide of the Golden Cat, to make it more binding. I’d bet on good old Captain every time.”