id of
one of young Drew's eyes and gazed at the lack of red there displayed.

"I see," remarked Reade gravely, "that your nerves are going all
to pieces."

"I feel fine," asserted Alf stolidly.

"You must, with your nerves in the state I now find them," retorted
the young engineer. "Next thing I know you'll be hearing things."

Click-ick-ick!

"Wow-ow-wow!" shrieked Alf Drew, bounding some ten feet away from the
low bush near which he had been standing.

Click-ick-ick-ick!

"Get away from that bush, Mr. Reade!" howled the young cigarette
fiend. "That rattler will bite you, if you don't."

"I didn't hear any rattler," said Tom gravely. "Did you, Harry?"

"Not a rattle," said Hazelton soberly.

Jim Ferrers looked on and grinned behind Alf's back. The youngster
was trembling. As Tom came near him the "rattle" sounded again.
Within five minutes two more warning "rattles" had been heard near
the boy.

"The camp must be full of 'em," wailed the terrified boy. "And
I'm afraid of rattlers."

"So am I, Alf," Tom assured him, "but I haven't heard one of the
reptiles. The trouble is with your nerves, Drew. And your nerves
are in league with your brain. If you go on smoking cigarettes
you won't have any brain. Or, if you do, it will be one that
will have you howling with fear all the time. Why don't you drop
the miserable things when you find they're driving you out of
your heads"

"Perh-h-h-haps I will," muttered the boy.

After an early supper, Jim Ferrers rode away. He offered to leave
his rifle in camp, but Tom protested.

"I'd feel responsible for the thing if you left it here, you know,
Jim. And I don't want to have to keep toting it around all the
time you're away."

"But suppose Dolph Gage and his crew come over here, and you're
not armed?"

"Then I'll own up that we haven't anything to shoot with, and
ask him to call again," Tom laughed. "But don't be afraid, Jim.
Gage and his crew will be anxious, for the next few days, to
see whether they can coax us into serving them. They need an
engineer over at their stolen claim, and they know it."

So Ferrers rode away, carrying his rifle across his saddle.

Alf spent an evening of terror, for the ground around the camp
appeared to be full of "rattlers".

CHAPTER IX

HARRY DOES SOME PITCHING

As Tom had surmised, Dolph Gage was anxious to become friends with
the young engineers.

"They're only kids," Dolph explained to his co