bit of this brush and you see
that I've not been bitten. Now I'll help you down to the ground,
and you want to get a good, steadying grip on your nerves."

Alf Drew permitted himself to be helped to the ground. No sooner,
however, had his feet touched the earth than there came that ominous
rattling sound.

"There, you big idiot!" howled Alf. "There it is again!"

"Just your bad nerves, Alf," Tom smiled. "They're so bad that I'll
overlook your lack of respect calling me an idiot!"

"Don't you s'pose I know rattlers when I hear 'em?" asked Drew,
sullenly. "I was almost bitten by one once, and that's why I'm so
afraid of 'em."

"I _was_ bitten once," Tom replied. "Yet you see that I'm not very
nervous about them, especially in a part of the country where
none are ever found. It's your nerves, Alf---and cigarettes!"

"I wish I had one now," sighed the younger boy.

"A rattlesnake?" Tom inquired innocently.

"No---of course not! A cigarette."

"But you're going to forget those soul-destroying little coffin-nails,"
Reade suggested. "You're going to become a man and act like one.
You're going to learn how much more fun it is to have your lungs
filled with pure air instead of stifling cigarette smoke."

"Maybe I am!" muttered the boy.

"Oh, yes; I'm sure of it," said Reade cheerfully.

Cl-cl-cl-click!

"O-o-o-ow!" shrilled Alf, jumping at least two feet.

"Now, what's the matter with you?" inquired Tom in feigned astonishment.

"Don't tell me you didn't hear the rattler just now," cried young
Drew fiercely.

"No; I didn't," Tom assured him. "And how could we find a
rattler--_here_? We're crossing open ground now. There is no place
within three hundred feet of us for a rattlesnake to move without our
seeing him."

Cl-cl-cl-click!

Alf Drew held back, trembling.

"I'm not going forward another step," he insisted. "This ground
is full of rattlers."

"Let's go back to camp, then, if your nerves are so unstrung,"
Reade proposed.

They turned, starting backward. Again the warning rattle sounded,
seemingly just in front of Alf, though there was no place for a snake
to conceal itself nearby.

Alf, however, turned paler still, halted and started off at right
angles to his former course. Again the rattle sounded.

"Hear that snake?" demanded young Drew.

"No; and there isn't one," Tom assured him. "Why will you be so
foolish---so nervous? In other words, why do you destroy your five
sense