“WELL, Guy Harris, I have only one word to say to you. If you think you can play off on me in this way, you are very much mistaken. I will post you among the fellows as a boy who is too mean to pay his honest debts.”

“I don’t care if you do, George Wolcom. I’ll tell the fellows in return that I have no debts hanging over me, and that you are a boy who doesn’t do as he agrees. I wanted a cross-gun; I tried to make one and failed. You said you knew how to handle carpenters’ tools and would make me one. I described to you just what I wanted, and you told me that you could fill the bill, and that the gun, when completed, would be worth half a dollar. What sort of a thing have you given me? Look at this,” continued the speaker, holding out at arm’s length a piece of wood which might have been taken for a cross-gun, although it looked about as much like a ball-club; “I can make a better one myself.”

“Then you don’t intend to pay me?”

“Of course I do, when you bring me such a gun as I told you I wanted.”

“But you won’t pay me for the one I have already made for you?”

“No, sir, I won’t.”

“Very well; but bear in mind that I am a boy who never let’s one do him a mean trick without paying him back in his own coin. I’ll be even with you for swindling me.”

“Oh, Guy! I say. Guy Harris, hold on a minute.”

The two boys, between whom the conversation above recorded took place, stopped when they heard these words, and looking across the street saw Tom Proctor running toward them. One arm was buried to the elbow in his pocket, and under the other he carried a beautiful snow-white dove, which was fluttering its wings and trying to escape from his grasp.

“See here, Guy!” exclaimed Tom as he came up, “I have just been over to your house, where I found my pigeon, which I lost about a week ago. Your mother said it came to your barn, and that you shut it up to keep it for me. Now that was a neighborly act, and I want to repay it. Here’s that box you have so often tried to buy from me.”

As Tom said this he pulled his hand out of his pocket and gave Guy the article in question, which proved to be a brass match-box. It was not a very valuable thing, but it had a revolving top secured by a curiously contrived spring, was stamped all over with figures of wild ducks, deer and rabbits, and was altogether different from anything of the kind that Guy had ever seen before.

For some reason or other he had long shown a desire to obtain possession of this box, but the owner could not be induced to part with it.

Before he could express his thanks for the gift Tom was half-way across the street on his way home.

“This is just the thing I wanted,” said Guy joyfully, as he and George Wolcom resumed their walk. “I shall think of Tom every time I look at this box when I am out on the prairie.”

“When you are out on the prairie?” echoed George. “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, it is my secret. You may know it some day, but not now. What do you suppose is the reason why I want a cross-gun?”

“Why, to kill birds with.”

“No, sir; I want to practice shooting at a mark. I shall have use for a rifle every hour in the day before I am many months older.”

“You will? Where are you going?”

“You needn’t ask questions, for I sha’n’t answer them,” said Guy, shutting the box with a click, and making a motion to put it into his pocket.

“Wait a second,” exclaimed George suddenly. “I know why Tom Proctor was generous enough to give you that box. It will be of no use to you for the spring is broken.”

“It isn’t either,” replied Guy.

“Yes it is; I saw it. Hand it out here and I will show you.”

Without hesitation Guy passed the box over to his companion, who, after opening and shutting it a few times, and making a pretense of examining the spring, coolly put it into his own pocket. Guy looked at him in great surprise, but George walked on without noticing him.

“Now that’s the biggest piece of impudence I ever witnessed,” said Guy at length. “I’d like to know what you mean by it.”

“Didn’t I tell you that I always get even with a fellow who does me a mean trick?” asked George, in reply. “I’ll keep this box as part payment for the cross-gun I made you.”

“Do you call this thing a cross-gun?” demanded Guy, once more holding up the stick he carried in his hand; “I don’t, and I sha’n’t pay you a cent for it either. Give me that box.”

“Give me that half-dollar you owe me.”

“I don’t owe you any half-dollar. Here, take your old cross-gun and give me my box.”

“It isn’t my gun—it is yours; and you can’t have your box till I get my just dues. You may depend upon that.”

A long and spirited debate followed this reply, and would most likely have ended in blows had the two boys been of equal age and size, for Guy was a spirited fellow, and always ready to stand up for his rights.

George was an overgrown lout of a boy, and plumed himself on being the bully of his school. Guy knew better than to attempt to take the box from him by force, so he followed along after him, talking all the while, and trying to convince him that he was in the wrong, and that he showed anything but a manly spirit in taking so unfair an advantage of a boy so much smaller than himself.

But George, being pig-headed and vindictive, could not be made to look at the matter in that light. He kept tantalizing his companion by turning the box in his hand, praising the beauty of the figures stamped upon it, and asking Guy now and then if he had anything else he could keep his matches in when he reached the prairie.

Presently the two boys arrived in front of the house in which Guy lived—a neat little edifice, with a graveled carriage-way leading upon one side, and trees and shrubbery growing all around it. Guy halted at the gate, and George, believing that if his companion would not pay him for his cross-gun he might be willing to give half a dollar to get possession of the match-box again, stopped also to argue the matter.

While the discussion of the points Guy had raised was going on, the gate leading into the next yard was opened, and a bright, lively-looking fellow, Henry Stewart by name, and one of Guy’s particular friends, came out. He greeted Guy pleasantly, and was about to pass on, when he noticed the look of trouble on his face, and stopped to inquire the reason for it. The matter was explained in few words, and Henry turned and gave the bully a good looking over. Being a great lover of justice, he was indignant at the treatment his crony had received.

“Well,” said George, returning Henry’s gaze with interest; “you have nothing to do with this business, and if you are wise you will keep out of it.”

“I want that box!” said Henry firmly.

“If you get it before I am ready to give it to you,” returned George, “just send me word, will you?”

Before this defiance had fairly left his lips the bully was rolling over and over in the gutter, which was in a very moist condition, owing to the heavy rain that had fallen during the previous night, while his antagonist stood erect on the sidewalk, flushed and excited, but without even a wrinkle in his clean, white wristbands, or a spot of mud on his well-blacked boots. In falling, George dropped the match-box, which Henry caught up and put into his pocket.

This proceeding was witnessed by two women—Henry’s mother and Guy’s step-mother. The latter made no move, but treasured up the scene in her memory to be repeated in a greatly exaggerated form to Mr. Harris when he came home to dinner, while Henry’s mother hurried down the stairs and out to the gate. She called to her son, who promptly answered the summons, and in reply to her anxious inquiries repeated the story of Guy’s troubles.

I do not know what his mother said to him, but I am sure it could not have been anything very harsh, for a moment afterward Henry came gayly down the walk, winked at Guy as he passed, and looked pleasantly toward the discomfited bully, who, having picked himself up from the gutter, was making the best of his way to the other side of the street, holding one hand to his head and the other to his back, both of which had been pretty badly bruised by the hard fall he had received.

“Now, that Hank Stewart is the right sort!” thought Guy, gazing admiringly after the erect, slender figure of his friend as it moved rapidly down the street. “If it hadn’t been for him I should never have seen this box again. I shouldn’t like to lose it, for I shall have use for matches after I become a hunter and trapper, and I shall need something to carry them in. This box is just the thing. If I wasn’t afraid Hank would refuse, I would ask him to go with me, I must have a companion, for of course I don’t want to go riding about over those prairies on my wild mustang all by myself while there are so many hostile Indians about, and Hank is the fellow I’d like to have with me. He knows everything about animals and the woods; he’s the best fisherman in Norwall; he never misses a double shot at ducks or quails; and I never saw a boy that could row or sail a boat with him. Why, it wouldn’t be long before he would be the best hunter and trapper that ever tracked the prairie. I’ll think about it, and perhaps I shall make up my mind to ask him to go with me instead of Bob Walker.”

Thus soliloquizing Guy made his way through the yard to the carriage-house and mounted the stairs leading to the rooms above. There were three of them. The first and largest served in summer as a place of storage for Mr. Harris’ sleighs and buffalo-robes, and in winter for his buggy and family carriage. The second was the room in which the coachman slept, and the third Guy had appropriated to his own use.

Here he had collected a lot of trumpery of all sorts, which he called his “curiosities,” and of which he took the greatest possible care. The members of the family, and those of his young friends who had seen the inside of this room, thought that Guy had shown strange taste in making his selections, for there was not an article in it that was worth saving as a curiosity, and but few that could under any circumstances be of the least use to him.

On a nail opposite the door hung a rubber blanket with a hole in the center, so that it could be worn over one’s shoulders like a cloak; from another was suspended a huge powder-horn; and on a third hung a rusty carving-knife, which one of Guy’s companions had sold to him with the assurance that it was a hunting-knife. Then there was a portion of an old harpoon which Guy said was a spear-head, a pair of well-worn top-boots, an old horse-blanket and a clothes-line with an iron ring fastened to one end of it. This last Guy called a lasso. He spent many an hour in practicing with it, whirling it around his head and trying to throw the running noose over a stake he had planted in the yard.

One corner of the room was occupied by a pile of old iron, to which horseshoes, broken frying-pans and articles of like description were added from time to time. Whenever this pile attained a certain size it would always disappear, no one seemed to know how or when, and Guy would go about for a day or two jingling some coppers in his pocket. When he had handled them and feasted his eyes on them to his satisfaction, he would stow them in an old buckskin purse which he kept in his trunk.

In another corner of the room was a large bag, into which Guy put everything in the shape of rags that he could pick up about the house. When filled it was emptied somehow, and Guy had a few more coppers to be put away in his purse. It was well for our hero that his father and mother did not know what he intended to do with the money he earned in this way.

“Nobody except me sees any sense in all this,” said Guy, as he closed the door behind him, and gazed about the room with a smile of satisfaction. “There isn’t a thing here that will not be of use to me by and by. That rubber blanket will keep me dry when it rains. That powder-horn I shall have filled at St. Joseph or Independence, and, as a rifle requires but little ammunition, it will hold enough to last me during a year’s hunting. That knife will answer my purpose as well as one worth two dollars and a half, for I can sharpen it, and make a sheath for it out of the skin of the first buffalo or antelope I kill. I must sell my iron again before long. How the fellows laugh at me because I am all the while looking out for old horseshoes and such things! But I don’t care. I’ve made many a dime by it, and dimes make dollars. I never neglect a chance to turn a penny, but I haven’t yet saved a quarter of what I need. I found half a dollar the other day by keeping my eyes turned down as I walked along the street, and that was a big lift, I tell you.”

As Guy said this he opened a small tool-chest that stood beside the pile of old iron. In this were stowed away a variety of articles he had picked up at odd times and in different places, and which he thought he might find useful when he reached the prairie.

There was a small bundle of wax-ends, such as shoemakers use. These would come handy when he needed a pair of good leggings, or when his moccasins, saddle, or bridle, got out of repair. There were several iron and bone rings he could use in making lassos or martingales for his horse; three or four pounds of lead for his bullets, and a ladle to melt it in; half a dozen jackknives, some whole and sound, others broken beyond all hope of repair; a multitude of lines, fish-hooks, sinkers and bobbers, which he intended to use on the mountain streams and lakes of which he had read so much; a few steel-traps, all bent and worthless, and also several “figure fours” which he had made so as to have them ready for use when he reached his hunting-grounds. In this receptacle Guy placed his match-box, congratulating himself on having secured another valuable addition to his outfit. This done, he bent his steps toward his house.

When he entered the dining-room he found his father and mother seated at the table, and he knew by the expression on their faces, as well as by the words that fell upon his ear, that there was a storm brewing. His mother had been relating the particulars of the encounter between Henry Stewart and George Wolcom, and repeating the discussion between Guy and the bully that led to it, all of which she had seen and overheard from her chamber window, and our hero came in just in time to hear her declare:

“I never in my life saw boys behave so disgracefully. Mrs. Stewart ran out of the house and tried to put a stop to the disturbance, but they paid not the least attention to her.”

“Guy,” said Mrs. Harris, “where is that article, whatever it is, that has been the cause of all this trouble?”

“I have put it away,” was the reply.

“Go and get it immediately.”

Guy retraced his steps to the carriage-house, and taking out the match-box, carried it to his father, who looked at it contemptuously.

“This is a pretty thing to raise a fight about, isn’t it?” he exclaimed. “Take it and throw it away.”

“But, father,” began Guy.

“Do you hear me?” demanded Mr. Harris fiercely. “Throw it away.”

Guy knew better than to hesitate longer. Mr. Harris was a stern man, and in his efforts to “bring his boy up properly,” sometimes acted more like a tyrant than a father.

Taking the box, Guy walked out of the door and disappeared behind the carriage-house.

“I will throw it away,” said he to himself, “but I’ll be careful to throw it where I can find it again. I never heard of such injustice. I wasn’t in any way to blame for the trouble, for I didn’t ask Hank to pitch into George Wolcom and get my box for me; and neither did Mrs. Stewart run out and try to put a stop to the fight. It was all over before she showed herself. But that’s just the way with all step-mothers, I have heard, and I know it is so with mine. She runs to father with every little thing I do, and seems to delight in having me hauled over the coals. It isn’t so with Ned. He can do as he pleases, but I must walk straight, or suffer for it. I sha’n’t stand it much longer, and that’s all about it. Stay there till I want you again.”

Guy threw the box into a cluster of currant bushes at the back of the garden, and after noting the spot where it fell, went slowly back to the dining-room and sat down to his dinner.