THE FALL
The woods echoed with the crack of the rifles as Roy and Teddy
opened fire on the rattlesnakes. The horses were prancing about in a
frenzy of fear, and it was almost impossible to take accurate aim,
but there were so many of the hissing creatures that this was not
necessary. The ground near the rock seemed literally covered with
the snakes, and a shot placed anywhere among them was nearly sure to
hit one.
“Blow their heads off!” Teddy was yelling. “Pulverize ’em!”
The boy had an intense hatred of rattlesnakes, like most Westerners,
and considered it a good deed to kill as many as possible.
The rifles were spitting lead as fast as the boys could pump bullets
into the chambers and pull the triggers. The earth in front of them
was beginning to resemble a butcher’s block. Torn bodies of the
snakes were everywhere.
“Don’t seem to know when they’ve had enough!” came from Teddy as he
pressed another clip into the rifle. “Golly, there must be a million
of ’em!”
The angry buzz of the reptiles increased in intensity as more and
more of the serpents issued forth from the cleft rock. The horses
were whinnying in terror, and it needed all the skill the boys
possessed to keep them from bolting. And, indeed, the sight of the
deadly, wicked-looking, triangular heads of the snakes was a
terrifying spectacle.
“There’s one less of ’em!” Roy cried, as he cut a large diamond-back
in half with a bullet.
“Atta boy!” Teddy answered. “If this bronc of mine would hold still
for a minute, I could get that big one near that tree!”
Roy looked to where his brother indicated and saw a huge snake lying
coiled with his head drawn back ready to strike. The boy raised his
rifle and took careful aim. Then a strange thing happened.
Almost more swiftly than the eye could follow, the snake uncoiled
and glided toward Roy’s horse. But, suddenly, it stopped, raised its
head, and for a moment stood perfectly still, directly in front of
the two boys. The sound of rattling stopped as a radio that has been
turned off. In surprise, Roy held his hand and did not take
advantage of the splendid target offered, it seemed purposely, by
the snake.
Teddy, however, was held in no such trance. Before him was a snake.
It was his duty to kill it. The boy raised the rifle to his shoulder
and squinted along the barrel. By almost a miracle, the horse
remained quiet.
Roy watched the scene in a detached way, almost as though he was
part of an audience of a staged drama. It was the moment of
breathless suspense before the crisis.
But this sense of unreality did not last long, for the silence was
shattered by the crack of Teddy’s gun. Roy looked down at the spot
where the snake had stopped, expecting to see it a mangled mass of
blood and skin. To his surprise, he saw the snake still in that
upraised, immobile position, as firm and steady as a rock. Teddy had
missed!
He had no opportunity to correct this mistake. The huge serpent
sounded his rattles just once. Then he swiftly lowered his head to
the ground, as though bowing farewell, and, like a streak of light,
was gone. And where, before, the ground had been alive with the
forms of writhing diamond-backs, there remained only the torn bodies
of those the boys had killed. The other snakes had gone with their
leader.
Teddy glanced at his brother, a sheepish look on his face.
“I missed him, clean!” he said, sliding the rifle back into its case
on the saddle. “Roy, I would have bet anything that I drew a perfect
bead in his head. I had him lined up just right when I squeezed the
trigger. I can’t understand it,” and Teddy shook his head.
“You missed, all right,” Roy answered, as though to himself. “He was
the king snake of that whole bunch! Wasn’t he a whopper, though?
Never saw such a big one! The way he stood there, with his head
raised looking right into your rifle barrel, he seemed
like--like--Ajax defying the lightning. You know, Teddy, I’m kind of
glad you did miss.”
“Well, you soft-hearted bronco-peeler!” Teddy laughed. “Glad because
I didn’t kill a sidewinder! Wait till dad hears about that! And,
speaking of dad, we’d better get back to him. He doesn’t know where
we are, and he may worry. Let’s go!”
“I only wish I hadn’t fallen,” Roy remarked in a low voice as they
rode along. “I’ll bet we would have had our broncs back now.”
“Aw, forget it,” his brother declared. “It wasn’t your fault.
Anyway, they were a good bit ahead, and we might not have caught
them, even if you hadn’t fallen. And when we did, we’d have had a
fight on our hands, I’m thinking. Not that I’d mind it,” he added
quickly. “But if we got punctured, mother and dad would worry like
all get-out!” It hardly entered the boy’s mind that he might have
been killed if he and Roy had succeeded in forcing the rustlers to
the wall.
“Where in thunder is that spring?” Roy asked in a petulant voice.
“Baby, I’m some dry! Next time I go chasing rustlers, I’ll bring
along a canteen, I’ll tell a maverick!”
Teddy did not reply. He was thinking that perhaps they would not get
another chance to go after the rustlers. Certainly the men ahead
were moving fast. Star, General, and Flash had more stamina than any
other three horses he had ever seen. This meant that, in a pinch,
the thieves could ride them well out of the county before night.
“Now you take that puncher in the checkered shirt,” Roy went on,
talking more to himself than to Teddy. “He’s a queer proposition.
When dad was knocking politeness into that barkeeper to keep him
from doing any plugging, old Checkered Shirt could have had things
to his own liking. Instead, he runs. Afraid, most likely.” Roy bent
lower in the saddle to avoid a tree branch which overhung the trail.
“Pop said he was a friend of Gilly Froud’s.”
“I don’t care if he’s a friend of Black Mike, the Killer!” Teddy
burst out. “If he flicks a cigarette in my face again I’ll salivate
him!”
Roy looked quickly at his brother. He knew the strain the younger
boy had been under, and felt that the best thing to do was to take
his mind off Flash and Checkered Shirt.
“Say, Teddy,” he said in a loud voice, “what do you think of those
two girls dad met on the train?”
Teddy glanced over and grinned.
“Think I need a little cheering up, Roy?” he asked. “Well, maybe I
do. Now what was that you wanted to know?”
“Say-y-y-y, you can’t get away with that!” Roy laughed. “You heard
me all right!”
“Oh, yes--the girls! Why, I think they’re very nice.”
“‘Very nice!’” Roy mimicked. “You don’t say! My boy,” and his voice
took on a paternal note, “I admire your restraint. But then, of
course, you know more girls than I do. To me--to me, they were as
the breath of springtime!”
“Aw, dry up!” Teddy exclaimed sheepishly. “Stop that kidding! You
liked ’em as well as I did. Jimminy, I’m thirsty!”
“Seems to me that spring is around here some place,” Roy declared,
pulling his horse up suddenly.
“Let’s separate, and see if we can find it,” suggested Teddy. “I’ll
go down the mountain a way, and you go up. If you find it, yell, and
I’ll do the same if I locate it. If we miss it, we can meet here in
ten minutes.”
Roy nodded his approval of the plan. He turned his steed to the
right, and started up the incline at an angle. Teddy watched him for
a moment, and then, licking his dry lips, faced in the opposite
direction. Chirping to his pony, he took a firm grip on the reins
and started the descent.
Riding down an incline is never as easy as riding up. Teddy realized
this, and he guided the pony slowly down Mica Mountain. As he rode,
he turned his head from side to side, seeking for the spring. The
boy was getting more thirsty every moment.
He came to a spot which seemed more treacherous than the rest. The
footing was of loose stone and very steep. Teddy seriously debated
whether it would not be better to dismount and lead the pony.
Fate, in the guise of a hornet, decided the problem for him. As the
hornet thrust his poisoned lance into the pony’s flank, the horse
gave a snort of pain and leaped forward. Teddy made a grab for the
saddle horn, missed, and went flying through the air. He landed face
downward on a bed of knife-like stones, and, as the horse regained
his balance and trotted off, Teddy, with a wild yell, went sliding
down the mountainside!