esnake in there under the wood," wailed the boy,
his face ashen.

"How do you know?"

"I heard him rattle!"

Leon, too, had heard the sound, and would have started after a
poker, intent on killing the reptile, had he not seen Tom shake
his head, a twinkle in his eye.

"There are no rattlesnakes about in the dead of winter on this
Range," Tom declared positively.

"That one has been keeping hisself warm in the bottom of the wood-box,"
insisted Alf.

Click-ick-ick!

"There, didn't you hear it?" quivered the cigarette fiend.

"I heard no rattler," declared Tom, innocently. "Did you, Leon?"

The cook thought, to be sure that he had heard one, but he caught
the cue from Reade and answered in the negative.

"Go and turn the wood-box out, Leon, to show the young man that
there's no snake there," Tom requested.

Just then that task was hardly welcome to the cook, but he was
a man of nerve, and, in addition, he reasoned that Reade must
know what he was talking about. So Leon crossed the room with
an air of unconcern.

"Here's your rattlesnake, I reckon," growled the cook, picking
up Alf's dropped cigarette and tossing it toward the boy.

"That's the only rattlesnake on the Range," Tom pursued. "I've
been trying to tell Alf that cigarettes are undermining his nerves
and making him hear and see things."

Leon unconcernedly overturned the wood-box. Alf, with a yell,
ran and jumped upon a stool, standing there, his eyes threatening
to pop out from sheer terror.

Leon began to stir the firewood about with his foot.

Click-ick-ick!

Alf howled with terror, and seemed in danger of falling from the
stool.

"You'll keep on hearing rattlers, I expect," grunted Reade, "when
all the time it's nothing but the snapping of your nerves from
smoking cigarettes. The next thing you know your brain will snap
utterly."

Click-ick-ick! On his stool Alf danced a mild war-dance from
sheer nervousness.

"Come, be like a man, and give up the pests," advised Tom.

"I---I---be-believe I will," half agreed the lad.

Click-ick-ick-ick!

"Didn't you hear that?" quavered the youngster.

"I hear your voice, but no rattlers," Reade went on. "Are you
still hearing the snakes? Be a man, Alf! Come, empty your pockets
of cigarettes and throw them in the fire."

Like one in a dream Alf Drew obeyed. Then he sat down, and presently
he began to recover from the worst of his fright.

When his hour was up, Tom Reade went bac