Argosy, Vol. 120, No. 1 — page 32: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

22 “Ves.” Burns hesitated before he added, slowly: “ I’ve got some—for snake-bite.” “You mean that you will not give me a drink?” . “T don’t warit to be mean, Harry, but all I could get was a pint.” “‘ Aw, come through with a nip! I was over to Thurman’s Hollow last night—and you know what that means!” “A pint ain’t any more than enough, if one of us should get struck,” he replied, stubbornly. “Ever see a man swell up with rattlesnake-poisen?”’ Stowe opened his mouth—and apparently remembered his pride and their quarrel. He reached to his pocket, drew out his plug of tobacco and bit off a chew. His face screwed up and he spat disgustedly. “ Can’t even take corhfort chewing!”’ he growled, and started off with such a stride that for a time Dave labored to keep up with him. - It was close to noon when they reached the vicinity of Red Rocks, which was the name given to a lightly wooded section of treacherous ravines and sun-baked ledges. They ate the scant lunches they had brought and Burns prepared at once to go to work. He had provided himself with a bag, for it was necessary to take the rat- tles to the town clerk in order to collect the bounty, and now he went searching through the undergrowth for a couple of suitable forked sticks and two hardhack clubs. This labor he took upon himself willingly, for his partner, at the end of the . journey, was in need of rest. The hunting was successful from the first. The weather had had the effect that Burns predicted and the rattlesnake—at least, that member of the family that dwells in the northern mountains—is not the terror he is reputed to be. gish, and he fights only when attacked or surprised. So the partners, working near each other for safety in case of accident, caught half a dozen snakes with their forked sticks and clubs before an hour had passed. It looked like a good day, and Burns was well pleased with everything except the chances Stowe was taking. Harry - leaped carelessly over stones and fallen logs and walked with his gaze anywhere but He is inclined to be slug- THE ARGOSY, upon the ground—and that was exactly the way in which one should not hunt rattle- snakes. Twice Burns cautioned him with- out effect; and at length David grew thoughtless of his own safety in the attempt to watch the feet of his partner. It was in one of those moments when his eyes were turned away from his own path that a warn- ing drone came up from the jagged rocks over which he was walking. He crouched to spring away, but before his glance could find the source of that sound and tell him which way to flee a needle of pain pricked his thigh and he knew that death would make a decision in that place within the next handful of minutes. His first movement crushed the head of the snake with a blow of his club, his second whipped his big jack-knife from a pocket, and his third tore a slit from waist-band to knee of his trousers. “Harry!” he shouted, as he worked. “Ym struck! Run and get the whisky in my coat!” He slit away the cloth in strips—trousers and drawers—until the two purplish-red marks lay free and clear to view, Criss- cross twice he slashed that small wound and bore down with his hands against the solid flesh to make it bleed. Damn the beast! Why hadn’t it struck lower, s) that he could get at the wound better? He could have sucked the poison out, perhaps. Why hadn’t he carried the whisky on his hip instead of in his coat? Burns jerked up his head with the con- sciousness that something was wrong. And there was something wrong—incomprehen- sively wrong—for Harry Stowe was stum- bling toward him over the rocks with a strange look upon his face. “Why the hell don’t you go?” yelled David. ‘I’m done for if you don’t!” Stowe came up to him, staring as though taken by some new and tremendous idea. He opened his mouth and his words jerked out: “YT drank that whisky—when you was gone after the clubs,” he said. For a moment Burns resigned himself, or tried to resign himself, to the thought of death. Then the hands of Stowe shot out, Burns was pushed backward upon a CoOMmiicloo CO@