"There you're shy a few, Tsan Ti. I'll bet my scalp against that queue of yours that Matt has already captured Sam Wing and recovered the Eye of Buddha."
Tsan Ti stirred restlessly.
"Do not deceive me with hope, honorable friend," he begged.
"Well, listen," and McGlory proceeded to tell Tsan Ti what had happened at the spring.
Tsan Ti's hopes arose. He had been ready to grasp at anything, and here McGlory had offered him undreamed-of encouragement.
"There are many brilliant eyes in the plumage of the sacred peacock," he murmured, "but by them all, I vow to you that there is no other youth of such accomplishments as Motor Matt. And, by the five hundred gods of the temple at——"
"Cut it out," grunted McGlory. "You've got Matt and me into no end of trouble with your foolishness. When you get that ruby into your hands again, stop fumbling with it. Pass it over to some one who knows how to look after it, but don't try the job yourself. This is first-chop pidgin I'm giving you, Tsan Ti, and I don't know why I'm handing it out, after the way you hocused my pard and me with that piece of red glass. But it's good advice, for all that, and you'd better keep it under your little black cap."
Tsan Ti relapsed into thoughtful silence. The mumble of voices continued to creep in through the swinging vines and the bush tops, but otherwise the quiet that filled the "pocket" was intense.
The mandarin was first to speak. Leaning toward the cowboy, he whispered: