ed Barney. "Phwoy don't yez spake
up and tell the truth?"

"Haow do yeou know I ain't told the truth?" asked Gallup, with mingled
offense and shame.

"Oi've bunked with yez for a year. Oi've known yez under all sorts of
circumstances, me laddie buck, and I can tell when you're spakin' the
whole truth and whin you're tryin' to hide something. Oi'm yer fri'nd,
Eph, and ye know it. Phwoy don't ye spake out and make a clane breast av
it? Phwat's the mather?"

"I don't like to have nobody stomp on my co't tail," mumbled the
Vermonter. "When a man rubs me the wrong way it kinder riles me, and I'm
pretty apt to resent it. Yeou'd made a bet with old Silence if Frank
hadn't happened araound, wouldn't ye?"

"Oi would," confessed Barney. "Oi'd been just chump enough to go him for
any owld sum up to foive hundrid dollars. All the same, Ephie, thot was
foolishness on my part."

"What's a feller goin' to do when one of these top-lofty critters comes
araound a-rubbin' it into him?" demanded Gallup. "Nobody likes to have
'em a-sneerin' and a-chucklin'. I like to shet them kind of folks up and
shet 'em up good and hard. I've seen old Silence sence we left the
bank."

"Phwat?" gasped Mulloy, a sudden light breaking upon him. "Ye don't mane
it, Ephie? Begorra, ye've been bettin' on the game!"

"That's jest what I have," nodded Gallup grimly. "Arter yeou and Frank
went off and I went to roamin' araound I run up ag'inst the big bear.
He give me a cigar, and we went into Priley's Hotel. He wanted me to
have a drink with him, but I didn't take nuthin' intoxicatin'. Silence
was there, with a whole lot of them baseball fellers. They was makin' a
lot of talk abaout haow they'd trim us to-morrer. They gut my blood to
b'iling, and I told 'em a few things. That critter, Silence, begun to
give me the laugh. He said us fellers made a lot of talk, but we didn't
have sand to back it up. Dod bim him! I guess I showed him I had sand!"

"Ephie," said the young Irishman soberly, "you and Oi are a little too
suddin in making back talk to thim kind av crathers. Shtill Oi can't
blame yez, my bhoy."

"Don't yeou tell Frank nuthin' abaout it, Barney," entreated Gallup. "I
wouldn't have him find aout for anything."

"Thot's the bad part av it, Gallup--thot's kaping a secret from Frankie.
It's doing something we know he wouldn't countenance."

"I guess that's what made me feel so rotten mean abaout it."

"How much did yez bet wid him? Did yez put u