“That’s my guess,” returned Matt; “but, if he is, why couldn’t he talk with you at the office in Liberty Street instead of having you come all the way out here?”
“I’ll have to shy at that, pard. Maybe Griggs is a plutocrat, and is accustomed to having people jump whenever he cracks the whip. Like as not he didn’t want to go in to the office to-day and just shot that message at us to save him the trouble of going too far for a palaver.”
“He told you all it was necessary for you to know, in the message. The meeting was postponed from last night to to-night. What else is there that he could want to tell you?”
“Pass again. Maybe he wants to ask about the colonel’s health, or——”
The cowboy bit off his words suddenly. Without the least warning, the runabout had made a wild lunge toward the side of the road.
“She’s cut loose again!” yelled McGlory, hanging to the seat with both hands.
Matt was holding the steering wheel firmly. So far as he could see, there was not the least excuse for the car’s making that frantic plunge toward the roadside.
Just ahead of the machine was a railroad track, and the noise of an approaching train was loud in the boys’ ears. Matt was thinking that, if the runabout repeated the performance it had given at Krug’s Corner, he, and Joe, and the car, stood a grave chance of being hung up on the pilot of a locomotive.
Before he could disengage the clutch or give a kick at the switch, one of the forward wheels struck a bowlder. The car jumped, throwing McGlory out on one side and Matt on the other.