McGlory laughed delightedly. He was playing a part with an important point in view, and it was necessary to pull the wool over Matt’s eyes. A despicable part it was, for one who had benefited at Matt’s hands as had McGlory; but the cowboy was filled with the colonel’s specious arguments and crafty explanations, and believed that, when the dust of the affair had settled, and Matt knew everything, he would thank his cowboy chum for preventing him from making a big mistake.
“The colonel is a schemer, Joe,” declared Matt.
“You bet your spurs he is,” chuckled McGlory. “That’s the way they raise ’em out in Tucson. The only way to keep a fellow from getting ahead of you is to get ahead of him first.”
Matt did not approve of these sentiments, nor of the hearty admiration the cowboy seemed to have for them.
“Billings is scheming the best he knows how,” went on Matt, “to get himself into trouble, Joe, and he’s figuring to drag you into it.”
“But you’re figuring the other way,” answered McGlory, “and I’ll back your headwork against the colonel’s any old time. What are you planning to do now?”
“I’ll have to know, first, what the situation is at the clubhouse as regards yourself. How is that you happen to be at large?”
“Well, pard, the colonel couldn’t do anything with me, so he let me go. You’ve got the report, you know.”
The cowboy was weaving a tangled web. The farther he went in his deceptions the more he was obliged to misstate the facts.
“You can go and come around the clubhouse,” continued Matt, “without being in any danger from the colonel and Levitt?”