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.”