“It’s all clear enough to me now,” remarked Chick. “Don Solado and Miguel are trying to hold Marcos here till it will be too late for him to stop this big grafting annexation?” “Exactly! We shall have to work like Trojans now to enable Marcos to win. I’ve pledged myself to do it, however, and we shall have to manage it, somehow,” was Nick Carter’s steady conclusion, as he turned the launch downstream. “We have Larry Dugan and his crowd against us, as well as Solado and Miguel. That will make it harder. But we can beat the gang if we stick to it.” “We’ll stick to it, all right!” responded Chick, with that determined note in his voice which his chief knew meant business. “That’s what I like to hear, Chick. It won’t be an easy task, but we have simply got to get Prince Marcos to Joyalita by the eighteenth of this month.” “You bet!” added Chick. CHAPTER II. SECRET FOES AT WORK. In spite of the sharp lookout maintained by Nick Carter and his assistant for the launch with the five rascals in it all the way down to that upper part of Manhattan Island where New York City has reached only to give certain favored persons semirural homes, they saw nothing of the evil-faced Larry Dugan and his companions. “There’s Crownledge,” pointed out Chick, as they came opposite the handsome house, in its own grounds, which Marcos and his mother had taken for a temporary residence. The launch ran up to the landing, and Nick Carter, leaving his assistant to take care of the boat, went into the house. He was met at the door by Claudia Solado, Marcos’ cousin. The girl was delighted to see the detective. “Mr. Carter, I am so glad you have come,” she said, as she put her soft hand into his. “Marcos wants to start for Joyalita at once, and, really, he is not well enough. After all he passed through in escaping from Prince Miguel and my uncle, and being so nearly drowned, he is weak and feverish. I am sure that if he will stay in the house until to-morrow morning, he will be so much better that there will be no danger.” “You have not seen Don Solado, your uncle, or Prince Miguel, near Crownledge this morning, have you?” he asked. “No. The last I saw of them was when you saved Marcos from drowning and allowed those two men to capture you to save him.” “That didn’t hurt me much, you see,” laughed Nick Carter. “They seemed to think they could hold me on that hired yacht of theirs up the river. But I got the better of them. If I had not, probably I should not be here now.” “Where are they?” “I don’t know. But so long as they are not bothering Marcos, I don’t think we need care. Where is the prince?” “In the library.” “May I see him?” “Of course. He is anxious for you to go in. He saw you through the window, coming up from the river.” Marcos was a well-built, robust young man at ordinary times. But he did not look robust just now. His face was pale and his movements lacked their usual resiliency.