"Right you are, my blood," gasped the half-suffocated Bunce, as the cowboy dropped his hands to his arm and dragged him down into a chair, "a heart-to-heart talk's the thing. Didn't I bear away for this place for nothin' else than to fall afoul o' ye? Ay, ay, that was the way of it, but split me through if I ever expected such treatment as this what I'm a-gettin'. Motor Matt's the lad, says I to myself, to fill the bill for Bunce, so I trips anchor an' slants away, only to be laid holt of like I was a reg'lar skull-and-crossbones, walk-the-plank pirate, with the Jolly Roger at the peak."
"Oh, put a crimp on that sort of talk," growled McGlory. "Sufferin' freebooters! If you're anything better than a pirate, I'd like to have you tell me."
"So, ho!" and Bunce's eye glittered wrathfully, "if I had a cutlass, my fine buck, I'd slit ye like a herrin' for that. I'm a fair-weather sort of man, an' I hates a squall, but stir up nasty weather an' then give me somethin' to fight with, an' I'm a bit of a handful. Nigh Pangool, on the south coast o' Java, I laid out a hull boat's crew with my fists alone, once, not so many years back. That was when I was mate o' the brig Hottentot, as fine a two-sticker as ever shoved nose into the South Seas—reg'lar bucko mate, I was, an' a main hard man when roused."
At the time the Eye of Buddha was recovered, Bunce had made his escape with Grattan; and he had been equally guilty, with Grattan, in the theft of the ruby from the Honam joss house. That the sailor should have shown himself at all, in those parts, was a wonder; and that he should have shown himself to Matt and McGlory, who knew of his evil deeds, was a puzzle past working out.
"You say you came here to see me?" inquired Matt.
"Ay, ay, my hearty," answered Bunce. "Motor Matt, says I to myself, is the lad to fill the bill for me, an' I luffed into the wind an' bore down for Catskill. Here I am, an' here's you, an' if I blow the gaff a bit that's my business, ain't it? But take me to the cabin; what I has to say is between us an' the mainmast with no other ears to get a sizing of it."
McGlory glared at Bunce as though he would have liked to bore into him with his eyes and see what he had at the back of his head.
"If you're trying to play double with us, you gangle-legged old hide rack," he threatened, "you'll live to wish you'd thought twice before you did it."
"Now, burn me," snorted Bunce, "d'ye take me for a dog fish? By the seven holy spritsails, I'm as good a man as you, an' ye'll l'arn——"
"Enough of that, Bunce," broke in Matt sharply, getting up from his chair. "You want to say something to us in private, and I'm going to give you the chance. Come after me; you trail along behind him, Joe," and, with that, Matt went into the hotel and up the stairs to the room jointly occupied by himself and McGlory.