Then the little red coat tails suddenly dropped out of the cloud of dust and came running back up the road to meet its master.

Jud watched the vanishing cloud of dust going toward the distant mountains.

"My G.o.d--not Bonaparte--not the champion," he said.

Billy stood also looking with big Dutch tears in his eyes. He watched the cloud of dust go over the distant hills. Then he waved his hand sadly--

"Goot-pye, mine bac'n!"

The monkey came up grinning triumphantly.

Thinking he had done something worthy of a penny, he added to Billy Buch's woe by taking off his comical cap and pa.s.sing it around for a collection.

He was honest in it, but the crowd took it as irony, and amid their laughter Jud and Billy slipped away.

Uncle Billy, the stake-holder, in handing the money over to the Italian, remarked:

"Wal, it don't look so much ag'in nachur now, after all."

"Breens uppa dar"--smiled the Italian as he put ten eagles into Archie B.'s hand. All of which made Archie B. vain, for the crowd now cheered him as they had jeered before.

"Come, let's go, Ozzie B.," he said. "They ain't no man livin' can stand too much heroism."

CHAPTER XXV

A BORN NATURALIST

Archie B. trotted off, striking a path leading through the wood. It was a near cut to the log school house which stood in an old field, partly grown up in scrub-oaks and bushes.

Down in the wood, on a clean bar where a mountain stream had made a bed of white sand, he stopped, pulled off his coat, counted his gold again with eyes which scarcely believed it yet, and then turned handsprings over and over in the white sand.

This relieved him of much of the suppressed steam which had been under pressure for two hours. Then he sat down on a log and counted once more his gold.

Ozzie B., pious, and now doubly so at sight of his brother's wealth, stood looking over his shoulder:

"It was the good Lord done it," he whispered reverently, as he stood and looked longingly at the gold.

"Of course, but I helped at the right time, that's the way the Lord does everything here."

Then Archie B. went down into his coat pocket and brought out a hollow rubber ball, with a small hole in one end. Ozzie B. recognized his brother's battery of Gypsy Juice.

"How--when, oh, Archie B.!"

"-S-h-h--Ozzie B. It don't pay to show yo' hand even after you've won--the other feller might remember it nex' time. 'Taint good business sense. But I pumped it into Bonaparte at the right time when he was goin' round an' round an' undecided whether he'd take holt or git. This settled him--he got. The Lord was on the monkey's side, of course, but He needed Gypsy Juice at the right time."

Then he showed Ozzie B. how it was done. "So, with yo' hand in yo'

pocket--so! Then here comes Bonaparte round an' round an' skeered mighty nigh to the runnin' point. So--then sczit! It wus enough."

Ozzie B. shuddered: "You run a terrible risk doin' that. They'd have killed you if they'd seen it, Jud an' Billy. An' all yo' money up too."

"Of course," said his brother, "but Ozzie B., when you bluff, bluff bold; when you bet, bet big; when you steal, steal straight."

Ozzie B. shook his head. Then he looked up at the sun high above the trees.

He sprang up from the log, pale and scared.

"Archie B.--Archie B., jes' look at the sun! It must be 'leven o'clock an--an think what we'll ketch for bein' late at school. Oh, but I clean forgot--oh--"

He started off trembling.

"Hold on, hold on!" said his brother running and catching Ozzie B. in the coat collar. "Now you sho'ly ain't goin' to be sech a fool as that? It's too late to go now; we'll only ketch a whuppin'. We are goin' to play hookey to-day."

But Ozzie B. only shook his head. "That's wrong--so wrong. The Lord--He will not bless us--maw says so. Oh, I can't, Archie B."

"Now look here, Ozzie B. The Lord don't expec' n.o.body but a fool to walk into a tan-hidin'. If you go to school now, old Triggers will tan yo' hide, see? Then he'll send word to paw an' when you get home to-night you'll git another one."

"Maw said I was to allers do my duty. Oh, I can't tell him a lie!"

"You've got to lie, Ozzie B. They's times when everybody has got to lie. Afterwards when it's all over an' understood they can square it up in other ways. When a man or 'oman is caught and downed it's all over--they can't tell the truth then an' get straight--an' there's no come ag'in! But if they lie an' brazen it out they'll have another chance yet. Then's the time to stop lyin'--after yo' ain't caught."

"Oh, I can't," said Ozzie B., trying to pull away. "I must--must go to school."

"Rats"--shouted Archie B., seizing him with both hands and shaking him savagely--"here I am argu'in' with you about a thing that any fool orter see when I cu'd a bin yonder a huntin' for that squirrel nest I wus tellin' you about. Now what'll happen if you go to school?

Ole Triggers'll find out where you've been an' what a-doin'--he'll lick you. Paw'll know all about it when you git home--he'll lick you."

Ozzie B. only shook his head: "It's my duty--hate to do it, Archie B.--but it's my duty. If the Lord wills me a lickin' for tellin' the truth, I'll, I'll hafter take it--" and he looked very resigned.

"Oh, you're playin' for martyrdom again!"

"There was Casabianca, Archie B.--him that stood on the burnin'

deck"--he ventured timidly.

"Tarnashun!" shouted his brother--"an' I hope he is still standin' on a burnin' deck in the other worl'--don't mention that fool to me!--to stay there an' git blowed up after the ship was afire an' his dad didn't sho' up." He spat on a mark: "_Venture pee-wee under the bridge--bam--bam--bam._"

"There was William Tell's son," ventured his brother again.

"Another gol-darn id'jut, Ozzie B., like his dad that put him up to it. Why, if the ole man had missed, the two would'er gone down in history as the champion a.s.s an' his colt. The risk was too big for the odds. Why, he didn't have one chance in a hundred. Besides, them fellers actin' the fool don't hurt n.o.body but theyselves. Now you--"

"How's that, Archie B.?"

Archie B. lowered his voice to a gentle persuasive whisper: "Don't do it, ole man--come now--be reasonable. If we stay here in the woods, Triggers'll think we're at home. Dad will think we're in school.

They'll never know no better. It's wrong, but we'll have plenty o'

time to make it right--we've got six months mo' of school this year.

Now, if you do go--you'll be licked twice an'--an', Ozzie B., I'll git licked when paw hears of it to-night."