CHAPTER IX. WHAT AILS M’GLORY?

Matt King, in a clump of bushes a quarter of a mile north of the Malvern Country Club, watched the road and waited for his chum. He had not much hope that McGlory would join him, for he believed that the cowboy would be held a prisoner by the colonel.

What Matt was doing, in this particular matter, was all for his friend. McGlory had become entangled with a gang of confidence men, who were playing boldly for big stakes. Whether the dishonest game won out or failed, Joe McGlory must have nothing to do with it. If he profited by the crime he would be called on to suffer at the hands of the law; and, even if the law never reached him, his conscience would make him miserable all his life for the part he had played in such a huge swindling scheme.

Matt, at any cost to himself, meant to keep McGlory clear of Billings and his criminal work. What is a friend for if not to stand shoulder to shoulder with a chum and save his good name? This touched upon one of Matt’s principles--one of his rules of conduct long ago formulated and steadily adhered to. And it was a code which had played a big part in his many successes.

Minute after minute slipped away, and then Matt’s heart bounded as he heard a crunch of footsteps around a turn in the wooded road. It might be Uncle Tom who was coming, however, with a report of his failure to deliver the message to McGlory. Peering through the bushes, hoping against hope, Matt’s fears suddenly subsided and an expression of thankfulness escaped his lips.

McGlory was coming!

Matt gave a low whistle. The cowboy answered it, and was soon at his friend’s side, gripping his hands.

“Bully for you, old chap!” exclaimed McGlory. “I’d like to see the gang that could lay _you_ by the heels when you make up your mind to get away.”

“You saw Uncle Tom, then?”

“Sure, or I shouldn’t be here. Old Ebony-face thinks you’re about the whole works, from the way he talks. A lot of queer things have happened to-day, but the queerest is your meeting Uncle Tom in this out-of-the-way corner of Long Island.”

“Wrong, Joe. The queerest--and the best--thing that’s happened is the way we picked up that private report of Levitt’s. We have to thank the crazy runabout for that.”

McGlory, although of a different opinion on that point since listening to the colonel’s persuasions, did not allow Matt to think that he disagreed with him.

“How did you make it?” the cowboy asked. “Uncle Tom didn’t tell me much about that. Principally he worked his bazoo letting me know what a great mascot he was, and how he used to pull luck your way down in Arizona.”

Matt, briefly as he could, told about the pavilion in the rear of the club grounds, and how Uncle Tom had sent his pursuers on the wrong track.

McGlory laughed delightedly. He was playing a part with an important point in view, and it was necessary to pull the wool over Matt’s eyes. A despicable part it was, for one who had benefited at Matt’s hands as had McGlory; but the cowboy was filled with the colonel’s specious arguments and crafty explanations, and believed that, when the dust of the affair had settled, and Matt knew everything, he would thank his cowboy chum for preventing him from making a big mistake.

“The colonel is a schemer, Joe,” declared Matt.

“You bet your spurs he is,” chuckled McGlory. “That’s the way they raise ’em out in Tucson. The only way to keep a fellow from getting ahead of you is to get ahead of him first.”

Matt did not approve of these sentiments, nor of the hearty admiration the cowboy seemed to have for them.

“Billings is scheming the best he knows how,” went on Matt, “to get himself into trouble, Joe, and he’s figuring to drag you into it.”

“But you’re figuring the other way,” answered McGlory, “and I’ll back your headwork against the colonel’s any old time. What are you planning to do now?”

“I’ll have to know, first, what the situation is at the clubhouse as regards yourself. How is that you happen to be at large?”

“Well, pard, the colonel couldn’t do anything with me, so he let me go. You’ve got the report, you know.”

The cowboy was weaving a tangled web. The farther he went in his deceptions the more he was obliged to misstate the facts.

“You can go and come around the clubhouse,” continued Matt, “without being in any danger from the colonel and Levitt?”

“That’s the way of it.”

“Then our next move is to get back to Manhattan. And, of course, we’ll have to use the runabout.”

“Why, Matt, we may run off the other end of Long Island if we try to use that chug cart!”

“We’ve got to use it, just the same, and you’re the one to get it from the garage. The quicker we start on the return trip the better.”

“You’re going to be at that meeting to-night?”

“We’re both going to be there. You’re to offer the private report in evidence, and tell all about our adventures this morning. I guess that will spike the colonel’s gun and block his little game of wholesale robbery.”

“Then my fortune will go glimmering,” said Joe, but not with much concern.

“Better to let a questionable fortune go glimmering, pard,” answered Matt earnestly, “than to do a dishonest thing that would bother you all your life. And perhaps,” he added solemnly, “it might get you into jail.”

“Wow!” shivered the cowboy, feigning trepidation. “That’s an elegant prospect--I don’t think.”

“What’s more,” went on Matt, driving his suspicions home, “the colonel’s such a schemer that I doubt whether, if he should swindle the syndicate out of a lot of money, he ever turned over a penny of it to you or to any of the other original stockholders.”

This caused the cowboy an inward tremor. But he allowed the fear to pass. Colonel Billings was his father’s friend--he had said so himself; and the colonel felt a responsibility for his welfare--which is also what the colonel had said himself. In the light of the colonel’s persuasions the cowboy was taking his word in everything.

“Well,” remarked the cowboy, “the colonel is up against the real thing now. He’s due for such a slam as he never had before. We’re the boys to do it; eh, Matt?”

“We’ll make a stand for the right,” said Matt, “and work shoulder to shoulder to win out. The colonel talks about a fortune. You and I can make plenty of money, Joe. I think we have proved that. The motors are mighty good friends to tie to, whether they’re hitched to submarines, automobiles, or aëroplanes. We’ll pin our faith to the explosive engine, and one of these days it will land us honestly in Easy Street.”

The colonel, McGlory remembered, had mentioned “Easy Street.” But not as Matt had done it. The longer the cowboy talked with his chum the more he hated himself for the part he was playing. If he talked with Matt too long McGlory was sure his purpose would slip from him, and that he would let out everything about the inner history of the colonel’s manipulations of the “Pauper’s Dream.”

“I’d like to look inside that manila envelope once more, pard,” said McGlory. “There’s a part of that private report I didn’t sabe, and I’d like to read it over again.”

Matt King promptly drew the envelope from his pocket and passed it to his chum.

“It’s evidence of the rascality of two men, Joe,” remarked Matt, “and----”

McGlory sprang up quickly and stepped out into the road. He paused there, flashing his eyes up and down. Apparently he was looking for somebody or something, but really he was fighting with himself. He had reached the point where he must play up his scheme for all it was worth, or else turn his back on Billings and a fortune.

The cowboy felt sure he was about to do the right thing, but to put himself in a wrong light with his beloved pard for only a few days was proving a harder task than he had reckoned on. Abruptly he clinched his resolve. Slipping the manila envelope into his pocket, he turned to look at the apprehensive face of Matt among the bushes.

“What is it, Joe?” queried Matt. “Some one coming?”

“Some one going,” replied the cowboy, “and it’s me. You don’t understand this, pard. Don’t think too hard of me until you know everything.”

Thereupon McGlory whirled and took to his heels, racing in the direction of the clubhouse.

Matt was so amazed he could not move or speak. What ailed McGlory? What did he mean?

“Joe!” he shouted, starting up from the bushes.

But the cowboy was already around the turn in the road and lost to Matt’s astounded eyes.

While Matt King stood there, his mind nearly a blank, staring down the road and wondering, a sharp voice came from behind him.

“Quick on it, Kelly! Now’s your chance!”

It was Levitt’s voice. Matt turned, only to be confronted by the burly individual from the club garage. In a flash the man grabbed him and hurled him crashing to his back among the bushes.

“Steady, my lad!” threatened Kelly. “I don’t want ter be any rougher with ye than I have ter, but orders is orders--an’ they say you’re a thief.”