ump of barberry bushes when he overheard Pete
Skidmore's voice inside:

"I'll bet $10 I kin pick it out every time. I'll bet $25 I kin pick it
out this time. Don't tech the cards."

"I don't want to lose no more money on baby bets," replied a tantalizing
voice. "I'll make it $40 or nothin'. Now, youngster, if y're a man--"

Shorty softly parted the bushes and looked in. Two of the well-known
sharpers who hung around the camps had enticed little Pete in there, and
to a game of three-card monte. They had inflamed his boyish conceit by
allowing him to pick out two cards in succession, and with small bets.

"I hain't got but $40 left o' my bounty and first month's pay," said
little Pete irresolutely, "and I wanted to send $35 of it home to
mother, but I'll--"

"You'll do nothin' o' the kind," shouted Shorty, bursting through the
bushes. "You measly whelps, hain't you a grain o' manhood left? Ain't
you ashamed to swindle a green little kid out o' the money that he wants
to send to his widowed mother?"

"Go off and 'tend to your own business, if you know what's good for
you," said the larger of the men threateningly. "Keep your spoon out
o' other folks' soup. This young man knows what he's about. He kin take
care o' himself. He ain't no chicken. You ain't his guardeen."

"No he ain't," said Pete Skidmore, whose vanity was touched as well as
his cupidity aroused. "Mind your own business, Mister Elliott. You're
only a Corpril anyway. You hain't nothin' to do with me outside the
company. I kin take care o' myself. I've beat these men twice, and kin
do it again."

"Clear out, now, if you don't want to git hurt," said the larger man,'
moving his hand toward his hip.

Shorty's response was to kick over the board on which the cards were
lying, and knock the man sprawling with a back-handed blow. He made a
long pass at the other man, who avoided it, and ran away. Shorty took
Pete by the collar and drew him out of the bushes, in spite of that
youngster's kicks and protestations.

He halted there, pulled out his pocket-knife, and judicially selected a
hickory limb, which he cut and carefully pruned.

"What're you goin' to do?" asked Pete apprehensively.

"I'm goin' to give you a lesson on the evils of gamblin', Pete,
especially when you don't know how."

"But I did know how," persisted Pete. "I beat them fellers twice, and
could beat them every time. I could see quicker'n they could move their
hands."

"You little foo