d Bob-Cat. "He's a game little sport,
Rifle-Eye," he added, turning to the tall figure beside him, "why not
let him play his hand out? You can't be dead sure how the spots will
fall. Sure, I've twice seen an Eastern maverick driftin' into a faro
game, an' by fools' luck cleanin' up the bank."

"If a man's a fool who depends on luck, what kind of a fool is the man
who depends on fools' luck? You ain't playin' a square deal, Bob-Cat, in
supportin' the lad to go on askin' to do what ain't good for him. But
seein' you force my hand, why, you'd better go ahead now."

"I didn't force your hand none," replied the other, "I was merely
throwin' out a suggestion."

"If I refuse the boy somethin' another man says is all right, doesn't
that make it look as ef it was meanness in me? An' he goin' to work with
me, too! What's the use o' sayin' that you ain't forcin' my hand? Givin'
advice, Bob-Cat, ain't any go-as-you-please proposition; it's got to be
thought out. Feelin's don't allers point the right trail to jedgment,
an', as often as not, the blazes lead the wrong way. You're all right
in your own way, Bob-Cat, but you're shy on roots, and your idees gets a
windfall every time an extra puff comes along. You're like the trees
settlers forgets about when they cuts on the outside of a forest an'
ruins the inside."

"How is that?" asked Wilbur, anxious to divert the stream of Rifle-Eye's
criticism from the cowboy, who had got himself into trouble defending
him. "I didn't know there was any difference between a tree on the
outside of a forest and one on the inside."

"Wa'al, then, I guess you're due to learn right now. If there's a tree
of any size, standin' out by itself on a mountain side, with plenty of
leaves, an' a big wind comes along, you c'n see easy enough that she
presents a heap of surface to the wind. An' when a mountain gale gets up
and blows fer fair, there's a pressure of air on that tree amountin' to
several tons."

"Tons?" queried Bob-Cat incredulously.

"Tons," answered the old Banger. "A tree needs to have some strength in
order to hold up its end. There's three ways o' doin' it. One is by
havin' a lot more give in the fibers, more elastic like, so that the
tree'll bend in the wind an' not get snapped off; another is by puttin'
out a lot o' roots an' shovin' 'em in deep an' at the same time havin' a
trunk that's plenty stout; an' the third is the thickenin' o' the trunk,
right near the ground, where the great