"What good's an explanation?" grunted the cowboy. "I wouldn't be tangled up with that thing for a mint of money. Sufferin' centipedes! It's a regular hoodoo, and hands a fellow a hard-luck knock every time he turns around. What's in the letter, anyway? If it's from Tsan Ti, I'll bet his paper talk is heavy with big words and all kinds of Class A 'con' lingo. Read it, do. I can't tell how nervous you make me hanging fire."
"It's from Tsan Ti, all right," said Matt, "and is dated New York."
"New York! Why, he was hitting nothing but high places in the direction of 'Frisco, when he left here. How, in the name of all his ten thousand demons of misfortune, does he happen to be in New York?"
"Listen," answered Matt, and began to read.
"'Esteemed and illustrious youth, whose never-to-be-forgotten services to me shine like letters of gold on a tablet of silver: Behold——'"
"Oh, the gush!" growled McGlory.
"'Behold,'" continued Matt, "'I send you the Eye of Buddha, the priceless jewel which belongs in the temple of Hai-chwang-sze, in my beloved Canton. You ask, of your perplexity, why is the jewel sent to you? and I reply, for the security's sake. Upon my trail comes Grattan, of the evil heart, weaving his plans for recovering the costly gem. I fear to keep it about me, and so I send to you asking that you remain with it in the Catskill Mountains until such time as I may come to you and receive it from your hands. This will be when the scoundrel Grattan is safely beheaded, or in prison, and clear of my way for all time. I turn to you of my perfect trust, and I adjure you, by the five hundred gods, not to let the ruby get for one moment out of your possession. Leave it nowhere, keep it by you always, either sleeping or walking, and deliver it to no one except to me, who, at the right time, will come and request it of you in my own person. Will it be an insult to offer you one thousand silver dollars and expense money for consummating this task? I commend you to the good graces of the supernal ones whose years are ten thousand times ten thousand!
"'Tsan Ti, of the Red Button.'"
The reading finished, McGlory eased himself of a sputtering groan.
"Loaded up!" he exclaimed. "You and I, pard, just at the time we thought we were rid of Tsan Ti and Buddha's Eye for good, find the thing shouldered onto us again, and trouble staring us in the face! Why didn't the mandarin deposit the ruby in some bank, or safe-deposit vault? Better still, if Grattan was on his trail, why didn't he have the express company take it to San Francisco for him instead of sending it to you, at Catskill? He knows less, that Tsan Ti, than any other heathen on top of earth. In order to keep himself out of trouble he hands us the Eye of Buddha, and switches the responsibility to us. Wouldn't that rattle your spurs?"
McGlory was profoundly disgusted.