CHAPTER XIV. M’GLORY’S LESSON.

“Pard,” said McGlory finally, “I’ve connected with a lesson this afternoon that’s made the biggest kind of an impression on me.”

“What sort of a lesson, Joe?” asked Matt.

“The kind that hits you plumb between the eyes like a bolt of lightning. Did you ever think you were smart, and then wake up and find yourself the biggest fool in seven states? No, I don’t reckon you ever did. That’s not the way Pard Matt is built.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Joe. I’ve been there. We all of us take a wrong course, now and then. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t.”

“Sufferin’ horn toads! Why, I thought all along I was starring myself, and that I’d laugh at you in a few days for being the one who’d made the bobble.”

“The trouble with you was, Joe, Colonel Billings had too much influence over you.”

“He’s got an oily tongue, Matt, and a brain that’s a wonder. After you dropped from the window, the colonel nailed me and pinned me down in a chair. I was as mad as a hornet, and ready to give him a right hook to the jaw, or any other kind of a right-hander that would make him take the count. That’s how I felt for about a minute--red-hot and boiling. But only for a minute. The colonel started his tongue, and I fell on his neck and shed tears of joy because he had singled me out to help feather-finger the kicks of the plutocrats. Not in those words, however. The colonel made it look like a just and warranted proceeding.

“The colonel allows Pard Matt is a blockhead, and that he’s taken a few facts and used ’em as signboards for the wrong trail. The colonel admits hiring Levitt to make a bogus report; but the bogus report, according to the colonel, was the one we found, and not the other gilt-edged prospectus submitted to the syndicate.”

“Why did he hire Levitt to make a report saying that the mine was no good?” inquired the amazed Matt.

“He didn’t, pard; he only said he did. I find there’s some sort of a difference between what the colonel really does and what he tells people he does. He knew the ‘Pauper’s Dream’ was rich, long before he sold me my stock. Then some of the stockholders who knew the same thing tried to freeze the colonel out. But the colonel was too wise. He sank the shaft without finding any gold--just to fool the stockholders who wanted to get rid of him. These fellows immediately sold out to the colonel, so that the colonel got hold of the majority of the stock. That means, of course, that he had the entire say about everything connected with the mine.

“As soon as he has the ‘Pauper’s Dream’ cinched, Billings begins to hit the simon-pure, ne-plus-ultra gold-bearing vein. Buyers flock to the scene. The colonel picks out this syndicate of Random & Griggs’ as the boys to get the mine. Levitt comes out to examine the mine for the syndicate. The stockholders who have been frozen out begin to grow restive, and to threaten legal complications. Then Billings shows his fine Italian hand by hiring Levitt to make out that report, saying the ‘Dream’ is a pocket, and that the pocket is empty. That’s for the soreheaded stockholders to see, and they see it. So, in that way, legal complications are sidetracked while the colonel is selling the mine to the syndicate.”

McGlory relapsed into silence for a mile, while the runabout behaved beautifully and drove long shafts of light from the search lamps into the growing dark.

“That,” continued the cowboy, stirring, “is the yarn the colonel put up to me. I swallowed it. But, pard, I wanted to tell you. The colonel said you mustn’t know a thing until after the deal was closed and the proceeds divided. As I figure it now, I reckon the colonel was afraid you’d jab a little horse sense into his yarn and puncture it. Anyhow, the truth remains that he made me believe I’d lose a fortune by telling you the truth about that private report. ‘Tell your friend about it later,’ says the colonel, ‘and then have a good laugh with him over the way he was fooled.’ So I smoothed down my rising feathers, laid low, and planned to sneak the private report on you all by myself.

“You know how I did that. You trusted me, and asked the old darky to tell me where you were. As soon as Uncle Tom had delivered your message, I rushed right off to the colonel and repeated it to him. Then I met you, executed my brilliant play, got the report, and delivered it to my good friend the colonel. He now has it in his pocket, or else he has burned it. Anyhow, you can bet a million against the hole in a doughnut that he don’t show that report to the syndicate. The question is, pard, will those syndicate people believe you and me?”

“It won’t matter much,” answered Matt, “whether they do or don’t. By jumping in there and telling them the truth, we’ll be placing ourselves on record.”

“I see. Then, if they’re skinned, we can read our titles clear and they’ll have only themselves to blame. But, pard, what have you been up to since I worked through that brilliant trick and left you staring at me from the bushes?”

“I’ve been a prisoner in the loft over the garage,” answered Matt.

“A prisoner?” echoed McGlory. “How was that?”

Matt told him the details.

“Oh, speak to me about that!” growled the cowboy. “Hannibal J. Levitt never mentioned the fact of your capture to me. If I’d known what had happened to you, pard, I’d have torn loose from the whole combination, fortune or no fortune. Why,” sputtered McGlory, as reflection brought the hidden details more and more before him, “Levitt never could have made that play if I hadn’t told Billings where I was to meet you! They got their heads together and worked it out.”

“Why didn’t you and Levitt ride into town with the colonel, Joe?”

“He thought it would be better for us to come by ourselves. He was ’way ahead of time, you know, and had to go to the bank before closing hours for the bullion. It wasn’t necessary for Levitt and me to be around until time for the meeting. Oh, I’ve had a fine run for my auburn chip, and no mistake. I’ll resign, here and now, from our partnership. The place for me is the range. Cattle punching is about the scope of my ability, and it ought to be the height of my ambition. Consider my resignation handed in, pard.”

“Then,” said Matt, “consider it declined. I won’t accept it.”

“Don’t make any misplay now, old chap,” begged McGlory. “I’m about as dependable as this crazy runabout. Sometimes I answer the control, but you’ve just seen how I can take the bit in my teeth and play hob with everything. I don’t think you can trust me, pard.”

“I don’t know any one I can trust better, Joe,” answered Matt.

“If you mean that, shake.”

Their hands clasped for an instant, and McGlory stifled a groan and clutched at his side.

“Say,” demanded Matt, “what’s wrong with you?”

“All jarred to pieces. That fall did it. When you shook my right hand I thought I was coming apart.”

“I wish,” said Matt, “that I’d had the Hempstead doctor look at you.”

“Look at me? Well, I reckon he did. He looked at me as though he thought I was a sandbagger. And he came pretty near having it right, at that.”

“You know what I mean, Joe.”

“Sure, I do. But we didn’t have time. We may be late for the meeting as it is. The colonel has showed his bullion, and flashed that affidavit about its coming from the ‘Pauper’s Dream’ as the result of a week’s run, and perhaps the syndicate has been stampeded. We may be too late.”

“We’ll not be too late to go on record,” declared Matt.

“Tell me this, pard,” said the cowboy: “Why were you piking for New York at the time you met the runabout backing down the road with no one aboard?”

“I had started for the meeting in Random & Griggs’ office,” said Matt.

“You were going there just the same, eh?”

“Of course.”

“While I was doing everything I could to help the colonel get me into trouble, you were still hustling to keep me out of it?”

“I knew Billings had influenced you in some way, Joe.”

“That’s the sort of a fellow for a pard! Of course you’re the lad to tie to. The wonder is that you’re still willing to hang onto me.”

“Random & Griggs must be as badly deceived in the colonel as any one else,” observed Matt.

“He can pull the wool over any one’s eyes, that fellow!”

“He was stopping at Griggs’ house, and the broker had put him up at the Country Club.”

“That’s right! And how the colonel has used that Country Club! The members of the club will be tickled to death if they ever find it out. You can do something to that tinhorn, Kelly, if you want to.”

“I don’t want to. He was working for Levitt----”

“Just as I was working for the colonel, eh? Maybe he was as badly fooled, too.”

For some time McGlory leaned back in his seat and kept quiet. Matt was worried about him.

“How do you feel now, Joe?” he asked.

“I was just thinking,” answered McGlory, “that this hoodoo car is trying to make up for the tough times it has given us. It’s about the worst combination of cylinders, rubber tires, and spark plugs that was ever put together, but, for all that, if it hadn’t cut up a few tantrums on the Jericho Pike this morning we’d never have found out a thing about the colonel’s crooked work.”

“That’s so. It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good, pard.”

“While the car’s running good, Matt, crowd the speed limit. Let’s get to Liberty Street as soon as we can.”

Matt proceeded to follow out his chum’s suggestion.