[CHAPTER VI.]
M'GLORY IS LOST—AND FOUND.
This unexpected encounter with Sam Wing was certainly a "hot starter" in the matter of the stolen ruby, although of apparently small consequence in the matter of the stolen car. But Motor Matt was not particular as to which end of the double thread fortune wafted his way. He followed Sam Wing just as zealously as he would have followed Philo Grattan, had it been the white thief instead of the yellow who had fled from the spring.
The cold spring water had run down the cowboy's face, under his collar, and had glued his shirt to his wet skin.
"Speak to me about that!" he breathed angrily, as he labored on. "If the rat-eater hadn't slammed that water into my face, I'd have had him by his yellow throat in a brace of shakes! Wow, but it's cold! I feel as though I was hugging an iceberg. Where's Matt?"
McGlory had not seen his chum since he had plunged into the bushes, but had followed blindly in a course he believed to be the right one, trying only to see how much ground he could cover.
Now, realizing suddenly that he might be on the wrong track, the cowboy halted, peered around him, and listened intently. The timber was thick and the bushes dense on every side. There were no sounds in any direction even remotely suggesting the Chinaman's flight and Matt's pursuit.
"I'm off my bearings and no mistake," reflected the cowboy, searching the ground in vain for some signs of the course taken by Sam Wing and Matt. "Matt will have a time overhauling the chink in this chaparral, and the two of us are needed. But which way am I to go?"
McGlory had been hurrying along the side hill that edged the valley and the road. He swept his eyes across the narrow valley, and then up the slope toward the top of the hill.