NICK CARTER STORIES _Issued Weekly. Entered as Second-class Matter at the New York Post Office, by_ STREET & SMITH, _79-89 Seventh Ave., New York. Copyright, 1915, by_ STREET & SMITH. _O. G. Smith and G. C. Smith, Proprietors._ Terms to NICK CARTER STORIES Mail Subscribers. (_Postage Free._) Single Copies or Back Numbers, 5c. Each. 3 months 65c. 4 months 85c. 6 months $1.25 One year $2.50 2 copies one year 4.00 1 copy two years 4.00 =How to Send Money=--By post-office or express money order, registered letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. At your own risk if sent by currency, coin, or postage stamps in ordinary letter. =Receipts=--Receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change of number on your label. If not correct you have not been properly credited, and should let us know at once. =No. 136.= NEW YORK, April 17, 1915. =Price Five Cents.= THE MAN THEY HELD BACK; Or, NICK CARTER’S OTHER SELF. Edited by CHICKERING CARTER. CHAPTER I. A MAN IN A MASK. “You’ll pass for a Mexican in those togs, chief.” “The ‘togs,’ as you call them, Chick, don’t necessarily make any character. But there is nothing about a Mexican to distinguish him from other men except his costume, so I dare say I shall be a good-enough Mexican for the purpose.” Nick Carter, the famous detective, regarded his reflection in the mirror rather disgustedly, and his speech came in angry jerks, unlike his usual calm, even tones. “You’ll be masked, of course?” observed his assistant, Chickering. “Certainly. It is a masked ball. If it were not, I should have very little chance of catching my men. They would know me at once.” “I hope they will be there.” “They will, in all probability--unless they suspect that I may be on the lookout for them. But I wish the costumer hadn’t made this mistake about my dress. I told him distinctly I wanted the uniform of a Spanish officer--a colonel, if he had it. Evidently he considered this rig--with the trousers split at the bottoms, and this big sombrero--was near enough, when he found he had not just what I ordered.” “Pity we hadn’t got the costumes in our own wardrobe.” “Yes. We have all kinds of disguises,” returned Nick. “But we seem to have overlooked both a Spanish officer and a Mexican of this particular type. I could have gone as a vaquero without bothering anybody outside. But I have been seen in that dress, and this gang of counterfeiters we are after are as cunning as any set of men I have ever met. They’d smell me out, as a vaquero, as soon as I went into the ballroom.”