The day was wet, the ploughing was over, and as we had an idle spell,
what more natural than that most of us should find business at the
store? where we sat on bags and boxes, and smoked and talked, or
sometimes sang beautifully to the wailing tunes from Long Jim's
concertina. This day old Abe Pike, humped up on the counter, with his
heels drumming against the side of it, was holding forth on the iniquity
of Parliament, when a stranger entered, wringing wet, and Abe stopped to
investigate his appearance.
"Don't let me interrupt you," said the stranger--a townsman evidently,
from his dress and assurance.
"Take a seat," said Abe, pointing with his boot at a box of soap. "Not
walking, are yer?" with a curious glance at the stranger's
knickerbockers. "Going far? Stopping here long? Stranger, aren't
you?"
"Well, yes," said the newcomer with a laugh. "I've come thirty miles
since breakfast."
"Grub early?"
"I beg your pardon? Oh, no; had breakfast at eight, left at nine."
"Phew!" said Abe, "thirty miles in four hours. Must be a good horse
you've got."
"It is rather," said the stranger, with a curious smile.
"Hoss knocked up, I s'pose. Been riding too hard?"
"No, not at all. He's good for another thirty miles before sunset," and
he gave us a wink.
Abe looked gravely at the stranger for some seconds, while one by one,
on some excuse or other, we went outside to look at the stranger's
horse. We found a new pattern bicycle in the shed--new to us--and we
returned to the room looking as much unconcerned as we could, but eager
to get a rise out of Abe.
"That's a fine animal," said Long Jim; "clean in the limbs, with plenty
of grit, and full of fire. Never turned a hair, too, what's more!"
Abe looked at Long Jim, who was trying to suppress a smile; then he
relit the pipe he had suffered to go out.
"Reminds me," he said, "of that there hoss Topgallant, which carried me
one hundred miles twixt sun-up and sun-down." Fixing his eyes on--the
stranger, he launched into a long yarn about some impossible incident.
He was not, however, up to his usual form, being suspicious of our nods
and winks, and the stranger was not astonished.
"It's a curious thing," he said, "that people are slow to believe in
things which have not come under their own observation unless they read
of them in print. Now this very morning I met with an experience which
may seem to you incredible."
"Go ahead," said Long Jim. "If you've got a story, tell it, and we'd be
thankful to you, after the stuff we've been obliged to swallow from Mr
Pike there."
"If I may say so," said the stranger, "his story was fair, but it lacked
circumstance. There is an art in building up a story which perhaps my
friend on the counter has missed."
"Fire away," said Abe, grimly. "I'm not too old to larn."
"Thank you. Of course, you all know the long descent into Blaauw
Krantz, and the sharp elbow bend in the wood near the bottom before the
steep fall into the river. Of course. Well, I have been in the habit
of riding out on Saturday evenings to visit a farmhouse on this side,
and, as a precautionary measure, I ring the bell continuously while
riding down the slope."
Abe arrested the narrative by a gesture--"Whatjer carry a bell for?" he
asked, suspiciously.
"To warn people ahead. You see," with a slight movement of the eyelids,
"I travel so fast that I am obliged to herald my approach."
"Better carry a trumpet," growled Abe. "Well, ring along."
"You are doubtless aware," continued the stranger, with a keen look at
the old man, "that snakes are sensitive to the influence of music."
"I've marked that circumstance," said Abe, with a lingering on the word.
"Why there's a snake in our Chapel as beats time to the `Ole Hundred,'
and many a time I've--"
"Oh! shut up," said Long Jim. "You were saying, sir--"
"My bell," continued the stranger, speaking more rapidly and keeping his
eye on Abe, "has a most melodious tinkle, and on the second occasion of
my visit to the house I have mentioned I noticed just at the elbow bend
what appeared to be the head and neck of a large snake thrust out from
the bush. On my next visit I observed the same spot more carefully, and
saw that I had not been mistaken. On three separate occasions that
snake was there, evidently attracted by the music of the bell."
"Why--" began Abe.
"I understand what you mean," exclaimed the stranger. "Why did I not
stop? Because I was travelling too fast; and whenever I returned up the
hill, going naturally slower, I could never see the slightest trace of
the snake. To come to the climax, this morning I sounded the bell as
usual, and on nearing the bend I saw that there were two snakes, and
that one of them, in order probably to hear the music more distinctly,
had glided partly into the road with his head raised about three feet.
To take the bend I was obliged to keep on the outer edge, which brought
me closer to the snake than I could wish--and evidently too close for
his comfort--for as I whizzed by he lost his presence of mind, and,
instead of retreating, advanced, with the result that his head and neck
went through the spokes of the front wheel."
"Front wheel!" said Abe with a snap.
"Certainly--the front wheel of the bicycle."
"A bysticle!" ejaculated Abe, with a snort of disgust that would have
sent us into an explosion of laughter if we had not been too much
absorbed in the story.
"Of course, the revolution of the wheel swung the remainder of the body
clear of the bush, and the tail whizzed by my head. To my fear and
horror, the next instant my left wrist was seized as in a grasp of iron
by the tail. The head, after one or two sickening thuds on the hard
road, which must have temporarily stunned the creature, slipped out on
the left side, when the momentum of the wheel immediately strung the
entire body straight out behind me, where it streamed with all its
twenty pounds weight acting as a brake."
"A brake?" said Long Jim.
"Yes, sir. As the tail seized my wrist, the curve of it took a bend
also round the handle bar. To that circumstance I owe my life. The
slackening in the speed of the machine, over which I had lost control,
owing to the dead weight of the serpent, prevented what would most
certainly have been a fatal smash among the boulders in the river bed.
As it was, the bicycle narrowly missed a large rock, and ran straight
into deep water, where it was, of course, brought to a stop. You notice
that my clothes are wringing wet still. I was, of course, thrown out of
the saddle by the jerk of the sudden stoppage, but as my wrist was
manacled to the handle bar I was in danger of suffocation by drowning."
The stranger paused, and Abe observed him with an admiring glance.
"How did you escape?" asked Long Jim.
"Why, sir, owing to the gratitude of that serpent. The cold bath
revived him, and when he realised the situation, he swam ashore and drew
me out with the machine. Yes, gentlemen, I assure you that was the
case. Then he unwound his tail and moved his wounded head, while
regarding me with a bright, but rather disconcerting, stare. I realised
in a flash what he was waiting for, and I rang the bell for five
minutes, when he slowly moved off into the wood, looking very sick from
the severe bashing. I do not ask you to believe the story, gentlemen,
but I am convinced that if the next time you come down Blaauw Krantz on
a bicycle you ring your bell you will credit me with keeping to the
exact facts."
"That beats your yarns, Abe Pike," said Si Amos, who had often been the
butt of the old man; "beats them to smithers."
"Jest does, and no mistake," said Long Jim.
"Why, Abe couldn't tell a story like that, with `circumstance' in it, to
save his life," said a third.
Abe shook his head sadly, and left the store, the stranger bidding him
good-bye very politely, then turning to join in the laugh. He was a
very pleasant young fellow, and he received our open flattery with a
quite affable air.
Old Abe, however, had not retired vanquished from the scene. When we
trooped out of the store we saw him lost in solemn contemplation of the
stranger's bicycle.
"A good horse, is it not?" said the stranger slyly. "Like to mount?"
"Sir," said Abe, "allow an old man to shake hands with you. I'm
thankful for your offer, but I won't mount now." The boys laughed.
"No, sir, not now; but, if you're coming down Blaauw Krantz next
Saturday week I'll meet you at the top and ride down."
"Can you manage a bicycle?"
"I can't now; but I'll larn. Is it a go?"
"Let him," said Long Jim, "and we'll all be at the bottom to pick him
up."
The stranger at last consented, very reluctantly; and it was agreed that
on the day named we should be at the "drift". Abe disappeared for
several days, returning at the end of that time with several scratches
on his hands and a decided stiffness in his legs. He would say nothing
to satisfy our curiosity beyond the simple remark that he had been
"Larning to steer a lightning wheel-barrer down a hill."
On the appointed day, having satisfied ourselves that Abe Pike meant to
stick to his contract, we all rode off to the "drift" to await the
descent and pick up the pieces.
The stranger kept up his side of the agreement; and, as it turned out,
he gave up his machine into the shaky control of Uncle Abe, after much
advice upon the art of steering round a corner on a slope.
Precisely at noon we heard, far up the hill, coming out of the dense
wood which hid the road and the curve from our view, the silver tinkle
of a bell rung continuously. Clear and sharp the sound came to us as we
waited in silence, for the space of a minute, growing louder, till
suddenly it ceased. After waiting a minute we all mounted and galloped
up. At the great elbow bend we saw the stranger tearing down on foot,
but there was no sign of Abe or of the machine.
On the road, however, there was the track of the wheel in the dust--a
track that faded away up the road, but stopped short at the bend.
"Where the blazes!" said Long Jim, looking around and up into the sky.
"What's that in the trees?" said Si, pointing down into the forest below
the bend.
"It's my cycle!" gasped the stranger, as he came up. "What a mad fool I
was to let him ride."
"Damn your cycle!" said Jim; "where's the old man?"
We peered over the edge, and saw him in a thicket blinking up at us.
We had him out and up in no time, while two men climbed the tree to
recover the machine, the stranger dancing about as if he were on hot
bricks.
"Is it injured?" he kept on crying.
"Injured be blowed," growled Si Amos; "it'll be injured sharp enough if
the old man's hurt."
"Who said I was hurt," said Abe suddenly, sitting up and feeling his
body. "I'm all right; but, boys, my sakes, you'll never b'lieve me,
never!"
"What's happened? Are you all right? Sure?"
Abe slowly rose and felt himself. "Yes. You listen," he said,
solemnly. "The stranger's right about them snakes--dead right."
"It's no time to joke," said the stranger, looking ruefully at the bent
spokes and twisted handle bar.
"You're right there; no man would joke who's jest escaped from death.
No, sir; I tell you, jes' as I came to this yer bend I looked out for
the snake, but instead of the snake I seed--and my heart jumped into my
throat at the sight--a thick rope stretched right across the road from
the bank on this side to the tree on the other, raised about two feet
from the level. The next instant I went smash into it."
"Who could have done that trick?" said Long Jim, with a dangerous look.
"The snake," said Abe, with a croak.
"The snake!"
"Yessir. I seed the glisten of his scales jes' as I went flying into
the bush."
"The snake!" said the stranger. "Absurd! Rot!"
"It were the snake--the friend of the crittur you hurt," said Abe with a
groan. "You see as I allow he were determined to have revenge, and when
he heard the bell he hitched his jaw to that root hanging down the bank,
and he stretched his tail round the bough of that tree on the other
side. A twenty-foot rock snake he were. I guess he's got the
stomach-ache from the hit I give him."
For a moment there was intense silence as the boys grasped the
situation, then they laughed till they sat down.
"Whatjer laughing at?" said Abe, solemnly, though his lips twitched
either with fun or pain.
The stranger smiled sadly, then he laughed too. "Old man," he said,
"let us shake again. You have beaten me. I confess I was lying, and
you have taken a strong measure to punish me."
"You was lying!" said Abe, opening his eyes and looking the picture of
astonishment. "Then why did that durned snake upset me?"
Then he fell back in a swoon, for he had been sore hurt--and we carried
him to the nearest homestead, while Si Amos rode furiously for a Doctor,
and Long Jim went about on tip-toe from the room to the door and back in
a state of restless anxiety.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The End.