“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.