“Swing the boat around!” called out Nick. “Put your wheel over to the left as hard as you can! That’s right! Make a wide circle! You’ll get there all right!”
The girl maneuvered the little craft neatly until it was headed downstream.
Nick saw it with strong approval.
“That’s the way! Now put on all the power you can and hustle down to New York! We’ve fooled them, after all!”
“But, Mr. Carter!” she called out.
“Go ahead!” was all he said. “Get to New York! That’s all you have to do!”
Claudia Solado would have liked to stay and pick up the detective. But she was a girl of real sense, and she knew better than to fly in the face of a man who had saved her cousin against almost overwhelming odds.
So she opened the throttle wide, and, with the unconscious Marcos lying across the boat—his head on a mat at her side, and his feet occasionally dipping in the choppy waves as she raced along—she soon left Nick Carter and her pursuers far behind.
She had not gone far, however, before the skiff ran up to where the detective was swimming hard toward the shore.
With an oath the gruff-voiced man seized him by his water-soaked coat collar.