He hesitated for a few seconds, not knowing what to do. Matt had got into trouble, all right, but had he gotten out of it?
Stepping quickly to a door which led directly into the lighted front room of the cabin, McGlory softly turned the knob and pushed the door open. The room was empty. A trap in the floor was open, and also a door leading into a dark room beyond. From somewhere farther aft came angry voices and more sounds of scuffling.
"That means me, I reckon," thought the cowboy, rushing across the lighted room and into the darker chamber farther on. It was his intention to keep going and find out just what the struggle he had been hearing might mean, and to do what he could for Motor Matt; but he heard a sound behind him, just as he gained the darkness of the rear room, which caused him to halt, turn cautiously, and peer backward.
A tall, gangle-legged individual, with a mustache the color of dried buffalo grass, a nose like a wart and eyes that looked like a couple of wilted cactus blossoms, had entered the door which McGlory had left open.
The manner of this person aroused the cowboy's interest and curiosity. If he was one of the gang, what was he doing there? And why was he acting in such a stealthy manner, as though in a hurry and fearing to be apprehended?
McGlory, for a moment, curbed his desire to hurry on to the rear of the house boat and stood and watched the stranger from the safe screen of darkness.
The man was looking for something, that was plain. Dropping to his knees, he reached under a bench at one side of the room. What he wanted wasn't there. He turned to the bench on the other side and gave an exultant grunt as he pulled a satchel from under it.
After flashing a wary look around him, he opened the satchel with trembling fingers and drew forth a package of banknotes that made McGlory stagger.
Money! George Lorry's money!