Brackett excused himself and passed around the corner of the building.
"That watch," proceeded the broker, "will prove to you that your friend is in my hands. He is being kept safely in a place which you will not be able to find. I have written three letters, one to you, Lieutenant Cameron, one to McGlory, and one to Mrs. Traquair. It will not be necessary to post two of them, for I can tell you, face to face, what the letters contain.
"The one to you, Cameron, has to do with some little unpleasantness connected with the aëroplane trials recently held at Fort Totten. Siwash Charley and, through him, myself were wrongly suspected of complicity in an accident connected with the flying machine. This has been very annoying to me. Your letter contained the information that, other matters being satisfactorily adjusted, your friend Motor Matt would be released under written promise from the authorities at Fort Totten to give over persecuting me and Siwash Charley for a crime of which we are entirely innocent."
McGlory, to put it figuratively, immediately "went up in the air." Before he could air his views, however, Cameron silenced him with a look.
"Motor Matt, according to your proposition, as I understand it," returned the lieutenant calmly, "is to be released providing the military authorities promise you and Siwash Charley immunity?"
"That is one of the conditions governing the release," answered Murgatroyd.
"What are the other conditions?"
"Well, the letter to McGlory contained that. Mrs. Traquair, as satisfaction for the mortgage which I hold against the Traquair homestead, west of here, is to turn over the quarter section to me. That is all. My letter to Mrs. Traquair contains that proposition, and my letter to McGlory requests him to write Mrs. Traquair that what I say, regarding the capture of Motor Matt, is true. McGlory is also to advise her to accept my terms. If those terms are accepted, and if the authorities at Fort Totten agree not to persecute me, or Siwash Charley, any further, Motor Matt will be released."
The cowboy was so full of language that he could hardly restrain himself. Cameron laid a hand on his arm and pushed him away.
"Murgatroyd," said the lieutenant, "you have just made the most impudent and brazen proposition I ever heard. You deliberately plan and commit a crime, and then plan and commit another to save you from legal responsibility for both."