"No, sir, but I didn't care to play it the way they wanted me to. They wanted me to bet money." "And you refused?" "I sure did." "That is where you were right. That is an old swindling trick, called the 'shell game'. If you had bet any money you would have lost." "I thought as much," said Roy. "I'm not so green as I look, even if I spent all my life on a ranch." "Indeed you are not, I am glad to see. I would advise you not to have anything more to do with those men." "Do you know them?" "No, but they have the ways and airs of professional gamblers." "They tried to rope me up, I guess," said Roy. "But they didn't have rope enough to tie me. Now I know their brand I'll sure be careful not to mix in with 'em." "I don't exactly understand your terms. I--" "I beg your pardon," said Roy. "I suppose I talk, more or less, as I do on the ranch. I meant they tried to get me into one of their corrals and take my hide off. Hold me up, you know." "I'm afraid I don't exactly know," went on the gentleman with a smile, "but I gather that you mean they would have robbed you, after getting you into their power." "That's it," said Roy. "I'm on another trail now, and they want to be careful," and he looked as though he could take care of himself, a fact that the gentleman noticed. "I felt like warning you, my boy," he said, "as I saw it was your first long journey." "And I'm much obliged to you," said Roy. "I wonder how everyone knows I'm a tenderfoot when it comes to traveling on railroad trains?" "A tenderfoot?" "Yes, that's what we call persons who don't know much about western life. I suppose their feet get tender from taking such long walks on the plains. Anyhow that means a sort of 'greenhorn' I suppose. Everyone on the train spots me for that." "Well, it is easy to see you are not used to traveling, for you take so much interest in everything, and you show that it is new to you. But you are learning fast. Even an experienced traveler might have been taken in by those gamblers." "I guess they'll not bother me any more," said Roy. And he was right, but only to a certain extent, for, though the gamblers did not "bother" him again, he had not seen the last of them, as you shall see. The tricksters were in a bad mood, and, soon after that they left the smoking room, and remained in another car, so Roy did not see them again that day. The express continued on, bringing the boy nearer and nearer to Chicago. He wished he might have a little time to spend there, as he had heard much of it, especially the stock yards, where his father sent many head of cattle in the course of a year. But Roy knew he must hurry on to New York, to attend to the business on which he had been sent.