It was a perilous trip the detective had now.
Mounds of rubbish had been built up by the explosions, and had caught fire afterward. Nick had to climb over them.
That the fire was incendiary there could be no doubt. Indeed, Nick Carter had heard enough of the plots of the two rascals from Joyalita, as well as of the Dugan gang, to know that the whole affair had been planned.
The only place where the plot had fallen down from the original intention was in the escape of Marcos.
He was to have been burned to death in this warehouse, and the explosions, arranged so that they should end in a general conflagration, were prepared for his destruction.
The fact that Chick was in the building, too, was merely an incident. It is not likely that the explosions would have been caused just for him alone. Still, as he chanced to be in the way of them, why, so much the better, in the opinion of the conspirators.
Dugan and his gang had been seeking to get Nick Carter and his principal assistant out of the way for years.
Nick was not bothering about that now. He had just climbed to the top of a blazing pile, and found Chick lying in a hollow on the other side.
Suddenly the heated mass gave way beneath him!
“I don’t care!” gasped Nick Carter, as he drew one foot out of a hole, where it seemed as if the leather of his shoe must be burned through. “I’ve got to get him out of this! I’d do it or—go with him!”