uth from you?"

"You always were down on me," replied Branders half coaxingly. "If you'd
only taken more trouble to understand me you'd have understood that I'm
not a half bad fellow."

"No; only about nine-tenths bad," grimaced Noll derisively.

"Well, there's no use in my staying here to talk with you fellows,"
muttered Tip angrily. "You never were friends of mine. So I'll be on my
way."

"Tramping it for forty miles, are you?" called Noll, as Tip turned away.

"'Bout that," Branders called back over his shoulder.

"Then, man alive, why don't you keep to the road, instead of scrambling
over these rough boulders?"

Tip's only answer was a snort.

"Come back to the road," proposed Hal to his chum. So the two rookies
clambered back over the ledge and down onto the excellent military road.
But they caught no further glimpse of Tip Branders; plainly he preferred
different paths.

"What do you make out of Tip?" asked Noll, a minute later.

"Nothing," Hal answered, "except that he was lying, as usual, of course.
Tip never tells the truth; there's no sport in it."

"I'd like to know what he is doing out in this country."

"Oh, I reckon," suggested Hal, "that, as he couldn't be a soldier, he
thought he'd take up cowboy life as the next best thing."

"He won't last long as a cowboy," laughed Noll. "Tip hates work, and the
cowboy is about the hardest worked man in America."

"Well, we don't have to worry about Tip," muttered Hal. "We don't even
have to talk about him. Noll, look at those noble old mountains!"

"Some day, when we have enough time off, we must walk to the mountains,"
urged Noll. "I wonder how many miles away they are--five, or six?"

"Hm!" laughed Hal. "I asked Sergeant Gray, and he said that range over
there is about forty miles away."

"Forty!" Noll looked plainly unbelieving.

"You'll find out, Noll Terry, that the air in these glorious old Rocky
Mountains is so mighty clear that you can't judge distances the way you
did back East. I'd rather have Sergeant Gray's word than any evidence
that my own eyes can supply me with."

"We won't get to that mountain range, then, until we have a week off,"
sighed Noll.

After wandering about for some time more the young rookies strolled
back to barracks. Hal had yet to find Sergeant Hupner and get assigned
to a bed and a locker.

Hupner proved to be a rather short, but keen and very pleasant fellow.
He was of German origin, but had no accent in his