“Yas, I done got dat, marse.”
“If you can’t get word to McGlory inside of an hour, then you come and tell me, will you?”
“Yo’ knows, Marse Matt, yo’ can count on Uncle Tom. Ah’ll do whut yo’ say, en Ah’ll wo’k mah ole haid off mascottin’ fo’ yo’ while Ah’m doin’ it.”
The old darky slipped away through the edge of the timber, and Matt, none too sanguine, proceeded to lay a course for the spot where he hoped to be joined by his cowboy chum.
[CHAPTER VIII.
THE COLONEL TRIES PERSUASION.]
For a few moments McGlory struggled in the grasp of Colonel Billings. He was excited, and angry over the way Matt had been treated, and he would not have hesitated to do the colonel an injury if he could thereby have escaped from the room and followed his pard.
“Quiet!” ordered the colonel sternly. “You don’t understand this thing, McGlory, or you wouldn’t be fighting to escape from me. I’m the best friend you ever had, if you only knew it.”
“Nary, you ain’t!” panted the cowboy. “My best friend just risked his neck dropping out of the window. You’re trying to get me into trouble, and Pard Matt is trying to keep me out. Take your hands off me, colonel!”
“I will, Joe, just as soon as you promise to sit still and hear what I have to say.”