"Maybe he was talking with two tongues when he said that."
Matt stepped over to the side of the room.
"Why did he leave Madison, Joe?" he asked in a low voice, as soon as McGlory had joined him.
"He got to be more than Uncle Dan could handle. You see, pard, Uncle Dan's money runs up into seven figures, and George corralled the notion that whenever he wanted anything all he had to do was to order it sent up to the house. He joined a yacht club, and wanted to put a motor boat in a race, so what does he do but order a five-thousand-dollar racer, and drew on dad. Dad lands on the proposition with both feet, and little George over there is so mad he sulks in his room for a week, then he chases himself out of the house, and trots a heat with a swift bunch of thoroughbreds, who spend their time gamblin' and drinkin'. George does that, you know, just to show how mad he is; but dad's dander is up good and plenty, and he vows he'll send George to a military academy, where they'll straighten the kinks out of him or else break him in two. George was more worked up over the military school than he was over the racing boat, so he opens dad's safe one night, takes out ten thousand in cold cash, and slips away from Madison between two days.
"Uncle Dan is a pretty good sort of fellow, although he never did anything for the McGlorys—not so you could notice it. He writes me all this that I've been tellin' you, Matt, and says that, if I see anything of George, will I please rope down, and tie him, and wire. The day after I get the letter, along comes a telegram saying George went to Chicago and bought a ticket for 'Frisco, and asking me to hit only the high places between Tucson and the Golden Gate. I went, and I've been here a week, walkin' my boot soles off, and askin' questions till I was blue in the face—but nothing doing. I got the notion that George had used his ten thousand for a trip to furrin parts, and so I was just beginning to cut loose on my own account and enjoy the boats when you and I came together, and this business of the Sprite was pushed into the grooves. If it hadn't been for you and the Sprite, pard, I'd never have found George. Now that I have found him, what am I going to do with him? Speak to me about that. I'd like to unload a little of the responsibility onto you."
"He's spoiled," observed Matt, after a little reflection; "and that's a cinch."
"Oh, no, he ain't spoiled!" scoffed McGlory. "He's just mildewed with conceit and cobwebbed with ideas of his own importance. Back of all that, he's got about as much s-a-n-d as a gopher. He's over there now leaking great big briny tears like a Piute squaw who's been caught stealin' a string of glass beads. Wonder if he thinks he can melt me?"
McGlory's black eyes glittered as they wandered to the heaving form on the bed.
"You'd think he was seven instead of seventeen," he grunted.