"Well, I'm s'prised; I am, for a fact! Jest to think all this took place right on my farm! Josi' won't hardly know what to think, and the——"
"Quiet in there, pard!" came the low voice of McGlory. "They're coming."
"Grattan and Pardo?" returned Matt.
"Sure, and they walk as though they were tired. Now I've got to rustle around and pretend to be so busy I don't see 'em."
The cowboy opened the hood and fell to tinkering with the wrench. All was quiet in the tonneau, but there was a load of danger for Grattan and Pardo in that blue car had they but known it!
Peering from the bushes, Matt and Boggs saw the two men come swiftly and silently along the road. McGlory, with steady nerves, kept at his work.
Pardo crept up behind the cowboy and caught him suddenly about the shoulders.
"I guess that puts the boot on the other leg!" exulted Pardo, drawing McGlory roughly away from the machine.
"The fellow that laughs last," cried Grattan, "laughs best. You've given us a good hard run of it, McGlory, but we just had to have this car. It means everything to Pardo and me. What's the trouble with it?"
"Loose burr," answered the cowboy, with feigned sullenness. "It's been bothering me ever since I left the pocket. If it hadn't been for that, you'd never have caught me."