Excerpt: "“No, Carter! I shall not go back until I have got my hands on that wretched crook, William Pike, and I don’t care if it leads me into the very heart of this strange country where they say a white man never has come from alive.” The speaker was Jefferson Arnold, the multimillionaire shipowner and importer of Oriental goods, whose establishment was one of the best known of its kind in New York City. His firm jaw came together with a snap, and his dark eyes sparkled with determination in the red light of the camp fire, as he looked at the world-renowned detective for approval of his determination. “I am rather glad to hear you say that,” was Nick Carter’s calm reply. Jefferson Arnold jumped up from the rock upon which he had been sitting and went around to shake the detective by the hand. “I knew you would agree with me,” he shouted. “We have found my son Leslie among these rascals, and we’ve driven them back, over the Himalayas all right. But that is not enough for me. I want to see what these mysteries are that we have heard so much about.” “Bully for you, Mr. Arnold!” cried Patsy Garvan. “That’s the stuff. I want to lick one or two of those black brutes for what they did to us the last time we had a mix-up.” “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?”"
