the desperadoes rode the dude, seeming utterly
fearless.

"Halt, thar!" cried one of the men, leveling a rifle at the young
horseman. "Hold up, ur chaw lead!"

The youth gave a surge that flung the horse upon its haunches.

"Steady Bolivar!" his voice rang out. "Would you shoot me?"

"Who be you?"

"Don't you know me? Ha, ha, ha! Well, I do not wonder. I'll look
different when I peel this mustache and wash off my make-up. I have her!
See here, boys!"

The blanket was flung back, and the face of Lona Dawson, the banker's
daughter, was revealed!

The girl was not unconscious, and she suddenly squirmed from the grasp
of her captor, slipped from the horse, and ran into the midst of the
outlaws, crying:

"Save me! Protect me!"

"Stop her, boys!" laughed the youth on the horse. "Don't let her get
away. I've had trouble enough, and taken risk enough to get her."

"Wa-al, who be you?" roared one of the band.

"Who am I? Look here; do you know this sign?"

He made a swift motion with his hand, and nearly every man cried:

"The chief's sign! But you are not the chief! He is here with us! You
are an impostor!"

"Am I? Look!"

He tore off a false wig, jerked away a false mustache, took a vial from
his pocket, turned some of its contents in his hand, and seemed to sweep
the make-up from his face.

The result was a wonderful transformation, and the face revealed was
almost exactly like that of Frank Merriwell.

The men stared in bewildered astonishment.

"It is the chief!" gurgled one of them.

"Of course I am," laughed the unmasked youth. "You wasted your time in
carrying off that other fellow who looks like me. Why didn't you leave
him to be lynched? Then the fools would have thought they had put Black
Harry out of the way."

"The other fellow?" repeated more than one of the men. "Who is the other
fellow?"

"He is the fellow who looks like me," laughed Black Harry, for the new
arrival was the boy chief of the marauders.

In the meantime, while this unmasking was taking place Frank had not
been idle. He had longed to meet Black Harry face to face, but now he
realized that his situation was perilous in the extreme. He must act at
once.

But the sight of the captive girl and her appeal for aid had bestirred
all the chivalry of his nature. He longed to do something to save her.

Swiftly moving near her, he suddenly caught her up, swung her over his
shoulder, and, with her held thus, regardless of the s