“Look after Phillips, Chick! When he seems able to take care of himself, as he will by the morning, I feel sure—you can go home, with Captain, and keep close to the telephone. I may call you up at any time.”
The engine in the launch was a powerful one, and the boat went shooting up the Hudson as if prepared to overhaul any other craft that might come in its way.
“Do you think we shall find Marcos, Mr. Carter?” asked Claudia, after a rather long silence, broken only by the chugging of the engine and the swish of the water past the hull. “Have you any idea where he is likely to be?”
“I may be mistaken,” replied Nick. “But I can’t help feeling that we shall get on his trail before morning.”
And, as he hustled the launch along, he believed thoroughly what he said.
CHAPTER VII.
ON THE BRINK OF BATTLE.
“There’s a light across the river, in the shadow of the Palisades,” remarked the girl, when they had gone several more miles. “It is some boat, or ship, of course. Might not that be the yacht?”
Nick Carter smiled, without letting the girl see his face. This was not difficult, for his back was turned toward her. He knew that lights on the Hudson were common enough, and that it was a hundred chances to one against this particular light belonging to the yacht they were after.
He swung the boat diagonally across the river to see.
“It isn’t a yacht at all,” he remarked, in a low tone, to the girl. “Just a barge, loaded with broken stone—to ballast the railroad over here, I guess. We’ll have to go farther.”