“That’s the way of it.”
“Then our next move is to get back to Manhattan. And, of course, we’ll have to use the runabout.”
“Why, Matt, we may run off the other end of Long Island if we try to use that chug cart!”
“We’ve got to use it, just the same, and you’re the one to get it from the garage. The quicker we start on the return trip the better.”
“You’re going to be at that meeting to-night?”
“We’re both going to be there. You’re to offer the private report in evidence, and tell all about our adventures this morning. I guess that will spike the colonel’s gun and block his little game of wholesale robbery.”
“Then my fortune will go glimmering,” said Joe, but not with much concern.
“Better to let a questionable fortune go glimmering, pard,” answered Matt earnestly, “than to do a dishonest thing that would bother you all your life. And perhaps,” he added solemnly, “it might get you into jail.”
“Wow!” shivered the cowboy, feigning trepidation. “That’s an elegant prospect—I don’t think.”
“What’s more,” went on Matt, driving his suspicions home, “the colonel’s such a schemer that I doubt whether, if he should swindle the syndicate out of a lot of money, he ever turned over a penny of it to you or to any of the other original stockholders.”