Chapter 30

NICK'S REPUTATION AT STAKE.

As Nick made the bold assertion of his power to produce Patrick Deever alive, both Chick and the superintendent looked at him with something as near doubt as anybody who knew Nick Carter could feel in any of his statements.

They both saw that Deever felt sure of his brother's escape, and they could not help seeing that there was many chances in favor of it.

But Nick was undismayed. He put his trust in Patsy's fidelity.

"I shall hold you and Flint under arrest," said Superintendent Byrnes to Deever. "Dr. Jarvis, you may go when you wish."

Nick, Chick and Dr. Jarvis left the room, after the last-named had expressed his thanks to those concerned in his deliverance.

Nick went at once to Nyack. It was very late when he reached there.

He made his way to the house of Lawrence Deever, which stood some distance from the centre of the town.

There was no sign of Patsy about the place. The house seemed to be deserted.

Nick easily effected an entrance. He searched the house thoroughly.

There were signs of the recent presence of Patrick Deever. He had done some rude cooking. The remnants of the food which he had prepared were visible.

But the man himself was not to be found. The method of his exit, however, Nick discovered.

A window in the end of the house, farthest from the street, was wide open, and beneath it, with the aid of his lantern, Nick found the foot-prints of a man who had leaped from the window.

Unquestionably that man was Patrick Deever.

The footprints could be traced a little way. They led toward a hedge which separated the property from a large, vacant tract south of it.

Nick could see where some person had recently broken through this hedge. And here he made a more important discovery, which gladdened his eyes.

Beside the hedge were Deever's foot-prints, and another's. The second must be Patsy's.

Passing through, Nick saw a wide field with a grove at its end. The foot-prints were very faint, but it seemed that Deever had started in the direction of that grove.

Nick hurried thither. He searched through the little clump of trees with the utmost minuteness, till at last, on the farther side, in a bit of soft ground, he found the foot-prints.

They still led in the direction of the river. Following such faint clews as he could find, Nick continued the search till dawn broke.

* * * * *

"Uncle Jimmy" Redwood has boats to let in Nyack. He has a boat-house on the river bank from which a flight of steps leads down to a long "float" extending into the river.

His boats are moored to that float, or anchored near the end of it. He has several fine, fast cat-boats, of which he is very proud.

Uncle Jimmy was overhauling his boats about six o'clock on the morning after the events just described, when a man, whom he had never seen before, came somewhat hurriedly down the steps, and said he wished to hire a cat-boat.

"I want the fastest boat in the fleet," he said.

Uncle Jimmy looked the stranger over carefully. There was a bandage around his head. Uncle Jimmy suspected that something was wrong, but that, after all, might not be any of his business.

"Get the Clio ready for this man," Uncle Jimmy shouted to an assistant at the far end of the float.

"Ay, ay, sir," said the man.

The Clio was lying with her nose against the float, and there was nothing to do but hoist her sail.

However, the stranger seemed impatient of even this delay.

When the sail was up, he jumped into the boat, and prepared to get under way.

But Uncle Jimmy's assistant had hold of the "painter," or rope, by which the Clio had been fastened to the wharf.

"Avast there!" he said. "Mr. Redwood don't let his boats go out that way."

"What do you mean?" demanded the stranger with the bandaged head.

"He won't let you go out alone. How does he know that you will bring the boat back?"

"Nonsense. I want to go by myself."

"He wants to take her out himself," called the assistant to Uncle Jimmy, who stood near the end of the float talking with another tarry old salt.

"He can't, and that settles it," said Uncle Jimmy.

"Shall I go with him?" asked the assistant, who held the Clio's painter.

"No; let Dick, here, go."

Dick, thus delegated to the duty of skipper, rolled down the float with the gait of an old sailor, and got aboard the Clio.

The stranger with the sore head grumbled, but he could not help himself. He insisted, however, on taking the helm as the Clio moved out from the float.

She was scarcely a hundred yards away when a young man, panting with haste, rushed down the stairs from the boat-house. The reader would have known Patsy by his activity, despite his disguise.

"I want a boat," he cried out.

"Quite a run o' business for so early in the morning," said Uncle Jimmy, calmly. "What sort o' boat do you want?"

"I want one that can overhaul the one that just left the float."

"I ain't got it," said Uncle Jimmy. "The Curlew is about even with her, but they ain't one o' them that can outsail her."

"Then give me the Curlew, and do it in a hurry," cried Patsy.

"By whose orders, I'd like to know?"

Patsy was in no mood for trifling. He showed Uncle Jimmy in less than two seconds that obedience would pay well.

The Curlew also was hauled in to the float, and Patsy was aboard of her and clear of his moorings before anybody could stop him, or even get in with him.

A brisk southerly wind was blowing in from the sea.

By the course which the Clio was taking Patsy guessed that it was the intention of her occupants to "beat" down the river against the wind.

Meanwhile, in the Clio, the man with the bandaged head was in a fever of excitement. He crowded the boat for all she could stand, but he seemed, on the whole, to be a clever boatman.

The old salt watched him critically for a few minutes, and then seemed to be satisfied.

Presently he began to notice the anxious glances which the man at the helm cast over his shoulder at the pursuing boat.

"You seem to be anxious to outrun that feller," he said at last.

Patrick Deever, for it was he, nodded his head and set his teeth. The old sailor looked long and earnestly at their pursuer.

"Wall, ye ain't doin' of it," he said, at last.

"Is she gaining?" asked Deever, nervously.

"She be," said the tar, calmly.

"I thought this was the fastest of Redwood's boats."

"So she be," was the answer; "but the Curlew's overhauling her this time."

"What's the matter?"

"The other feller's the best sailor, that's what's the matter. I don't know who he is, but he's a skipper from away back."

For some minutes Deever kept silent. From time to time he glanced astern.

There was no doubt about it; the Curlew was gaining.

"Can you get any more speed out of her?" he said at last, in desperation.

"Reckon I kin," said the tar. "Shall I take her?"

"Yes, and if you outrun them I'll give you a hundred dollars."

"All right."

The grizzled seaman took the helm. In ten minutes it began to look blue for Patsy and his chief. The Clio had reasserted her superiority. She was slowly dropping the Curlew astern.

When they tacked on the other side of the river the Clio had doubled her lead. In an hour the Curlew was half a mile behind.

"Where are ye bound?" asked the old tar.

"There's a vessel anchored in the harbor. I'll show you where. You're to put me aboard and keep still about it. The hundred is yours, and as much more to go with it."

They were nearly abreast the Battery, when suddenly the police-boat was seen heading toward them.

"That's the 'Patrol,'" said Deever. "Give her a wide berth."

Instead of complying, the boatman put his helm over, and stood straight toward the tug.

"Here!" cried Deever; "what does this mean?"

"It means," said the boatman, "that you're my prisoner, Patrick Deever. I am Nick Carter."

Ten minutes later they were both aboard the police-boat, and in another hour Nick had redeemed his pledge to produce Patrick Deever alive before the superintendent.

"I'd have had him, anyway," said Patsy, afterward. "He turned on me in the woods up there in Nyack and knocked me down, and tied me.

"He thought I was done, but I wasn't. I was just going for a tug when you ran him aboard the police-boat.

"At any rate," he said in conclusion, "it's some satisfaction to know that it was you, and not he, that outsailed me."

The two Deevers were punished in due course for conspiracy, and Flint for perjury.

"On the whole," said Superintendent Byrnes to Nick, "I think that was about the prettiest work I ever saw. The most puzzling thing in the world, I've noticed, is apt to be a perfectly plain case."

THE END.