less, and, holding her thus, the man, who
wore a wolf mask, almost ran through the grove to the shore of the lake.

By the time the shore was reached the girl's struggles had become very
weak, and the only sounds issuing from the smothering folds of the
blanket were choking moans.

As Inza's captor approached the water he uttered a low, peculiar
whistle.

It was answered by a similar whistle.

The answer served to guide the man with the wolf mask to the spot where
a canoe lay floating with its prow touching the shore, guarded by a man
who stood straight and silent on the bank.

"Ben!" excitedly yet softly called the man with the girl.

"Here," was the answer.

"Ready with the canoe! Back there you hear them shouting. Thank the
saints the senorita no longer struggles! She has fainted."

"What got?" asked the man on the shore, who was a full-blooded Indian
guide, known as Red Ben. "Big bundle."

"Never mind what I have here. I paid you to wait and be ready to take me
away in a hurry, and now it is in a hurry I must go. Swing the canoe so
I may put her in it."

The shouts of men and excited voices of women came to their ears from
the pavilion.

"Let them bark!" muttered Inza's captor. "I'll soon be far away, and the
water will leave no trail for Merriwell, the gringo, to follow. Once he
trailed me, but I have taken precautions this time."

Unhesitatingly he stepped into the water beside the canoe, in the bottom
of which he placed Inza, with the blanket still wrapped about her. A
moment later he was seated in the canoe, which Red Ben pushed off from
shore, springing in himself and seizing a paddle.

"Keep in the shadows near the shore," directed the wearer of the wolf
mask. "Paddle hard, for much trouble it might make us both should we be
seen."

"You steal gal?" questioned the curious Indian.

"She belongs to me," was the answer. "My enemy claims her, but she is
mine. Don't talk, Ben--paddle for your life. Were we to be seen now----"

"Point out there," said the redskin. "We go by him, nobody back there
see us."

"Then get past the point at your finest speed, and it is doubly well you
shall be paid for this night's work."

The Indian made the canoe fly over the surface of the water. He kept
close to the shore of a little cove and then swept out in the shadow of
the trees along the rim of the lake, soon reaching the point.

As Ben sent the canoe shooting past that point it came near colliding
with a