UNWELCOME CALLERS.
Once more, during the course of that eventful day, Ping was to be congratulated on his quickness and wit. McGlory had gone to the door to make his survey of what was transpiring inside the sod shack, and Ping had approached a window. The revolver shot caused the Chinese boy to jump, and to debate in his startled mind whether it would be better to run, or to hold his ground. He held his ground and used the stone—to the lasting benefit of Joe McGlory.
Now, at last, it seemed, the brawling and the violence was over. Murgatroyd lay in the place where Matt had lain, Newt Prebbles was bathing his injured head in a basin of cool water, and Matt, McGlory, and Ping were sitting down and explaining to each other how everything had happened.
"You were foolish to talk like you did to Murgatroyd, when he had the best of you, Matt," said McGlory.
"He didn't have the best of me," asserted Matt. "I had made a friend by that talk, and the friend was Newt Prebbles."
"That's the truth," spoke up Newt, turning his head for a look at Matt.
"Well, then," bristled McGlory, "maybe you'll explain why you helped Murgatroyd down Matt, in the first place?"
"I was to blame there," answered Newt, "but I didn't understand the situation. Everything had been sprung on me all of a heap, as you might say, and I was dazed and bewildered. Murgatroyd had come here because I had written and asked him to. He had money for me, as I supposed, and I considered myself in duty bound to help him. Later, when Motor Matt did his talking, I discovered some things which put up the bars between Murgatroyd and me. That last thump on the head, of course, topped off the whole affair. Murgatroyd was crazy mad, that's all. He hit me with something harder than his bare knuckles. Was it the handle of his revolver?"
"Maybe it was this," and McGlory leaned forward and picked a pair of brass knuckle dusters off the clay floor.
"That's what he used," declared Prebbles.