“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.