Matt did not dismiss his cowboy pard's words with the careless laugh he usually had for such sage remarks.
"It's all nonsense, of course," said he, "your talking about me taking all the risk and doing all the work. I fly the machine because I'm the only one who can do it, but you help me in other ways that are just as important. I'm in the air for perhaps thirty minutes each day, while you're on the ground, old pard, and watching things during every hour of the twenty-four."
"Watching things!" exploded McGlory. "Speak to me about that! How well do I watch things? Did I see the Hindoo when he hitched that bag with the snake to the aëroplane? It was my business to get onto that, and I didn't know until you had left the road and were too far up to hear me. That's what I'm kicking about. I fell down—and I'm to blame for the whole bloomin' mishap."
"You're not," said Matt sharply, "and I won't have you say so. It's useless to harp on such things, anyhow, Joe, so let's discuss something of more importance."
"The way you fooled the cobra? Why, that's——"
"Not that, either. The bag tied to the aëroplane has the name of the show lettered on it, so——"
"Burton and I both discovered that," interrupted McGlory. "Carter had two bags containing the show money. We already had one, and that bag's the other. Wait, and I'll get it."
McGlory dived under the lower wing of the machine and groped about until he found the bag.
"There was nothing in it but the snake," said he, as he rejoined Matt. "It was a bagful of trouble, all right, at that. Fine two-tongue performance the Hindoo gave when he said he had sold the snake. Sufferin' Ananias! I suspected him of putting the bag there the minute I saw the cobra crawling up onto the lower wing, behind you and Le Bon."