Lorry was only a moment in freeing the cowboy's jaws of the twisted handkerchief.
"Tell me about this!" fumed McGlory. "I thought I'd never be found. What are you kneeling there for, George, gawping like you were locoed? Get these ropes off me, and see how quick you can do it. Don't you know that Matt's in that boathouse, and that he and Ping are trying to save the Sprite? We've got to lend a hand. Sufferin' blockheads, but you're slow! Cut the ropes with a knife if you can't untie 'em."
"I'm in my underclothes," answered George. "I don't know where my knife is."
"I've got a knife in my pocket. Take it out, but hustle, for Heaven's sake, hustle!"
George was shaking like a man with a chill. The terrors of the moment were dawning upon his bewildered mind. His hands trembled while groping through McGlory's pockets, and they trembled worse when he opened the knife and tried to use it.
"Who—who set the fire?" he mumbled.
"Do you think I'm a mind reader?" stormed McGlory. "I was to blame, for I was on guard and ought to have seen those negroes before they downed me and trussed me up in this fashion. If anything happens to Matt, I'll be to blame for it, and if the Sprite is burned I'll be to blame for that, too. Oh, I've got a lot to think of, I have!"
The cowboy's self-reproach was keen.
"Did some one steal up on you, Joe?" asked Lorry.
"What do you take me for, George? Do you think I laid down and put my hands behind me so the blacks could tie 'em? They got me, right there at the corner of the boathouse, just as I was coming around. A blow dazed me, and before I could let out a yip, they had ropes on my wrists and ankles and that thing between my jaws. I heard Matt calling, and, sufferin' jailbirds! here I lay without bein' able to say a word. Oh, can't you cut those ropes? Take a brace—your nerves are in rags."