it," Alf argued.

"You funny little shaver," laughed Tom, good-humoredly. "So you think that, when men see you smoking cigarettes, they immediately imagine you to be one of them? Cigarette-smoking, for a boy of fourteen, is the short cut to manhood, I suppose."

Tom laughed long, heartily, and with intense enjoyment. At last he paused, to remark, soberly:

"Answering your first question, Drew, I haven't the 'makings.'
I never did carry them and never expect to."

"What do you smoke then?" queried Alf, in some wonder. "A pipe?"

"No; I never had that vice, either. I don't use tobacco. For your own sake I'm sorry that you do."

"But a lot of men do smoke," argued Alf. "Jim Ferrers, for instance."

"Ferrers is a grown man, and it would show a lot more respect on your part if a 'kid' like you would call him 'Mr. Ferrers.' But I'll wager that Mr. Ferrers didn't smoke cigarettes at your age."

"I'll bet he did."

"We'll see."

Tom stepped to the doorway of the tent, Alf making way for him, and called lustily:

"Ferrers! Oh, Mr. Ferrers!"

"Here, sir!" answered the voice of a man who was invisible off under the trees. "Want me?"

"If you please," Tom called back.

Ferrers soon appeared, puffing at a blackened corn-cob pipe. He was a somewhat stooped, much bronzed, rather thin man of middle age. Ferrers had always worked hard, and his body looked slightly the worse for wear, though he a man of known endurance in rough life.

"Ferrers, do you know what ails this boy?" demanded Tom.

"Laziness," Jim answered, rather curtly. "You hired him for a chore-boy, to help me. He hasn't done a tap yet. He's no good."

"Don't be too hard on him, Ferrers," pleaded Tom solemnly. "I've just heard the youngster's sad story. Do you know what really ails him? Cigarettes!"

"Him? Cigarettes!" observed Ferrers disgustedly. "The miserable little rascal!"

"You see," smiled Tom, turning to the boy, "just what men think of a lad who tries to look manly by smoking cigarettes."

"Cigarettes? Manly?" exploded Jim Ferrers, with a guffaw. "Men don't smoke cigarettes. That's left for weak-minded boys."

"Say, how many years you been smoking, Jim Ferrers?" demanded Alf, rather defiantly.

"Answer him, please," requested Tom, when he saw their guide and cook frown.

"Lemme see," replied the Nevada man, doing some mental arithmetic on his fingers. "I reckon I've been smoking twenty-three years, because I began when I was twenty-four years old. Hang the stuff, I wish I had never begun, either. But I didn't smoke at your age, papoose. If I had done so, the men in the camps would have kicked me out. Don't let me catch you smoking around any of the work you're helping me on! Is that all, Mr. Reade? 'Cause I've got a power of work to do."

"That's all, thank you," Tom assured him. "But, Ferrers, we'll have to take young Drew in hand and try to win him back to the path of brains and health."

"Say, I don't believe I'm going to like this job," muttered Alf
Drew. "I reckon I'll be pulling my freight outer this camp."

"Don't go until tomorrow, anyway," urged Tom. "You'll have to go some distance to find other human beings, and grub doesn't grow on trees in Nevada."

With a sniff of scorn Ferrers tramped away.

"I guess, perhaps, what you need, Drew is a friend," remarked Tom, resting a hand on the boy's nearer shoulder. "Make up your mind that you can't have a cigarette this afternoon, take a walk with me, in this fresh air and the good old sunshine. Let's drop all talk of cigarettes, and give a little thought to brains and a strong body. They don't flourish where you find boys smoking cigarettes. Come along! I'm going to show you how to step out right, and just how to breathe like a human being. Let's try it."

Tom had almost to drag the boy, to make him start. But Reade had no intention of hectoring the, dough-faced little fellow.

It was rough ground along this mountain trail in the Indian Smoke
Range of mountains, in Nevada. Soon the pulses of both began to beat
more heavily. Tom took in great breaths of the life-giving air, but
Alf was soon panting.

"Let's stop, now," proposed Tom, in a kindly voice. "After you've rested a couple of minutes I'm going to show you how to breathe right and fill your lungs with air."

Soon they were trying this most sensible "stunt." Alf, however, didn't succeed very well. Whenever he tried hard it set him to coughing.

"You see, it's mostly due to the cigarettes," said Tom gravely. "Alf, you've simply got to turn over a new leaf. You're headed just right to have consumption."

"Cigarettes don't give a fellow consumption!" retorted the younger boy sullenly.

"I don't believe they do," Tom admitted, thoughtfully. "Consumption is caused by germs, I've heard. But germs take hold best in a weakened part of the body, and your lungs, Alf, are weak enough for any germ to find a good place to lodge. What you've got to do is to make your lungs so strong that they'll resist germs."

"You talk like a doctor!"

"No; I'm trying to talk like an athlete. I used to be a half-way amateur athlete, Drew, and I'm still taking care of my body. That's why I've never allowed any white-papered little 'coffin-nails' to fool around me. Bad as your lungs are, Alf, they're not one whit worse than your nerves. You'll go to pieces if you find yourself under the least strain. You'll get to shivering and crying, if you don't stop smoking cigarettes."

"Don't you believe it," muttered the boy, sullenly.

"Alf," smiled Tom, laying a hand gently on the boy's shoulder, "you don't know me yet. You haven't any idea how I can hang to a thing until I win. I'm going to keep hammering at you until I make you throw your cigarettes away."

"I'm never going to stop smoking 'em," retorted Drew. "There wouldn't be any comfort in life if I stopped."

"Is it as bad as that?" queried Tom, with ready sympathy. "Then all the more reason for stopping. Come; let's finish our walk."

"Say, I don't want to go down and through that thick brush," objected
Alf Drew, slowing his steps.

"Why not?"

"Snakes!"

"Are you afraid of snakes, Alf?"

"Some kinds."

"What kinds?"

"Well, rattlers, f'r instance."

"There are none of that kind on this part of the Indian Smoke
Range," Reade rejoined. "Come along with me."

There was something mildly though surely compelling in Tom's manner. Alf Drew went along, though he didn't wish to. The two were just at the fringe of the thick underbrush when there came a warning sound just ahead of them.

Click! cl-cl-click!

"Whee! Me for outer this!" gasped Alf, going whiter than ever as he turned. But Tom caught him by the shoulder.

"What's the matter?" demanded Reade.

Click cl-cl-click!

"There it is again," cried Alf, in fear.

"What on earth are you talking about?" Tom demanded.

Once more the dread sound smote the air.

"Rattlers!" wailed Drew, perspiring from fear. "Lemme get away from this."