"It wasn't him did that. He tried, but I had to finish the job. But I was treatin' you well, at that. I could have dropped down back of a clump o' bushes, there in the timber, and picked you off with this." Wily touched his hip pocket. "But I didn't. That ain't my style. I'd rather have you like this an' come to a little agreement with you. As for Dhondaram, I hadn't an idea he was in the house. I'd given him a key, an' I knew he might be here, but I wasn't expectin' him so soon. Mebby it was lucky for me that he was around."
"So that's it, eh?" commented Matt sarcastically. "You've been meeting Dhondaram, and helping him, when you knew he had been a prisoner of Burton's and had escaped from the show train between Jackson and Kalamazoo. If a person helps a fugitive of the law to escape, he is guilty of a crime and can be punished for it."
"There you hit it! But I was ducking out—and you wouldn't let me duck. I'm going to leave, in spite of you and Burton. That's the worst I've done—talkin' with Dhondaram and carryin' Hindoostanee letters. But I'll not be jugged for that, or——"
A hiss of warning came from Dhondaram. At the same moment he leaned down and replaced the cloth over Matt's lips.
Distant voices were heard, then the sound of a key rattling in a lock.
"The fellow that was here before has brought some others," whispered Wily. "Hang the luck! I wish we had got out o' here while we had the chance. Now, then, we're in for it an' no mistake."
"Listen, sahib!" frowned the Hindoo.
The voices that had been heard outside the house were now talking in the hall. It was impossible to distinguish words, but Matt's heart leaped as he recognized McGlory's voice and Burton's.
They were looking for him!
"They cannot find us down here, sahib," murmured the Hindoo, his voice soft and purring as that of a tiger cat. "They will go as the first one went, then we can leave."