“What do you mean?” put in Chick. “I ask that as first lieutenant of the greatest detective in the world. We licked ’em, didn’t we?”
“Sure we licked them!” agreed Patsy promptly. “But they blazed away at us with poisoned arrows and tried to dig holes in us with their spears. It wasn’t their fault they did not lay out our whole bunch.”
Nick Carter laughed heartily.
“When people get into a fight, Patsy,” he reminded his young second assistant, “the object is understood to be to hurt the enemy as much as possible. You should not hold that against anybody who puts up a fair fight.”
“That’s all right!” conceded Patsy. “But this wasn’t any fair fight—at least on the side of these Indians from the Land of the Golden—what is it?”
“The Land of the Golden Scarab,” supplied Nick.
“All right! I’d forgotten that word. It’s always a sticker to me,” grumbled Patsy. “But, anyhow, when those fellows, with their white turbans and black faces, and their thin shirts and short pants, came surging from behind the rocks, trying to get us by surprise, I hadn’t any use for them. What I want is a man to stand up before me and give me a fair-and-square give-and-take. Then I haven’t any kick coming if I get the worst of it.”
“When shall we start?” asked Jefferson Arnold impatiently.
“You mean you will not go down to Calcutta, to get re-enforcements, then?” asked Nick.
“No, indeed,” returned the millionaire. “What would be the use of that? Here we are, right among the foothills of the Himalayas, and we know—or think we know—that this mysterious race of beings, who worship the Golden Scarab, are just on the other side of the range, in front of us.”