"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.