“All right, Alf, climb in,” nodded Tom.  “But see here.  Cigarettes make you as nervous as a lunatic.  If you have any bad dreams tonight, and begin yelling, then I’ll rise and throw you outdoors.  Do you understand?”

“Yes,” mumbled the boy.  “But I won’t dream.  I’m not nervous now.  It’s only when I can’t get enough cigs that I’m nervous.”

“You should have seen him this afternoon,” Tom continued, turning to his chum.  “The lad and I took a walk.  At every other step he kept imagining that he heard rattlesnakes rattling.”

“And I did, too,” contended Alf stoutly.  “You know I did.  You heard ’em yourself, Mr. Reade.”

“I didn’t hear a single rattler,” Tom replied soberly.

“Let the tired little fellow go to bed in peace,” urged Harry.

“All right,” Tom agreed.

Alf went to the head of the cot, to turn the blanket down from the head.

Click-ick-ick-ick! came the warning sound.

With a yell of terror Alf Drew bounded back.

“There’s another rattler,” he screamed.  “It’s under that blanket.”

“It’s all your nerves,” Tom retorted.  “There isn’t a rattler within miles of here.”

“Didn’t you hear a rattle, Mr. Reade?” wailed the cigarette fiend.

“No; I didn’t.”

“Didn’t you, Mr. Hazelton?”

Harry was on the point of answering “yes,” but Tom caught his eyes, and Harry, knowing that something was up, shook his head.

“You must both be deaf, then,” argued Drew.

“Why, see here, you nervous little wreck of a cigarette,” said Tom, grinning good-humoredly, “I’ll show you that there is no snake in that bed.  Watch me.”

With utmost unconcern, Tom took hold of the blanket, stripping it from the cot.  Then he ran his hands over the under blanket.

“Not a thing in this bed but what belongs here,” Tom explained.  “Alf, do you see how cigarettes are taking the hinges off your nerves.”

Shame-faced, and believing that Tom was right, Alf advanced toward
the cot.   As he reached the side of it-----

Click-ick-ick! sounded close to him.

“You can’t make me stay in this tent.  It’s the most dangerous spot in Nevada,” cried Drew, turning and fleeing into flee open.  The two chums could hear his feet as he sped to another part of the camp.

“Some trick about that rattling?” queried Harry in a whisper.

“Of course,” Tom admitted with a wink.

“It’s a shame to tease the youngster so.”

“It would be,” Tom assented rather gravely, “but I’m using that means to make the lad afraid to smoke cigarettes.  If young Drew goes on smoking the miserable little things he’ll become come a physical wreck inside of a year.”

“How do you do the trick, anyway?” asked Harry curiously.

“Does it really sound like the click of a rattler?” asked Tom.

“Does it?  I was ‘stung’ almost as badly as poor Alf was.  How do you do the trick?”