Out of the Depths: A Romance of Reclamation

  CHAPTER IX

  THE SNAKE

  Early in the afternoon, having nothing else to do, Isobel againsaddled up and started off towards Dry Fork. Her intention was to rideout on the road to Stockchute and meet Ashton, if he was not toolate.

  As she rode up one side of the divide, a hat appeared over the bend ofthe other side. She could not mistake the high peak of that comicopera sombrero. Ashton was almost back to the ranch. Her first thoughtwas that he had gone part way, and given up the trip. The big sombrerobobbed up and down in an odd manner. She guessed the cause even beforeAshton's head and body appeared, rising and falling rhythmically. Shestared as Rocket swept up into view, covering the ground with along-strided trot.

  Ashton waved to her. She waved back. A few moments later they wereclose together. As she spun her pony around, he pulled in his horse toa walk, patting the beast's neck and speaking to him caressingly.

  "Back already?" she asked. "Surely, you've not been to Stockchute--Yes,you have!" Her experienced eye was taking in every indication of hishorse's condition. "He's been traveling; but you've handled him well."

  "He's grand!" said Ashton. "Been putting him through his paces. Isuppose he is your father's best mount."

  "Daddy and Kid ride him when they're in a hurry or there's no otherhorse handy."

  "You can't mean--? Then perhaps I can have him again occasionally."

  "You like him, really?"

  "All he needs is a little management," replied Ashton, again pattingthe horse's lean neck.

  "If you wish to take him in hand, I'll assign him to you. No one elsewants him."

  "As your rural deliveryman's mount--" began Ashton. He stopped to showthe bulging bag slung under his arm. "Here's the mail. Do you wishyour letters now?"

  "Thank you, no."

  "Here is this, however," he said, handing her a folded slip of paper.

  She opened it and looked at the writing inside. It was a receipt fromthe postmaster at Stockchute to Lafayette Ashton for certain lettersdelivered for mailing. The address of the letter to Thomas Blake wasgiven in full. The girl colored, bit her lip, and murmuredcontritely: "You have turned the tables on me. I deserved it!"

  "Please don't take it that way!" he begged. "My purpose was merely toassure you the letter was mailed. After all, I am a stranger, MissKnowles."

  "No, not now," she differed.

  "It's very kind of you to say it! Yet it's just as well for me tostart off with no doubts in your mind, in view of the fact that in twoor three weeks--"

  "Yes?" she asked, as he hesitated.

  "I--Your father will hardly keep me more than two weeks, unless--unlessI make good," he answered.

  "I guess you needn't worry about that," she replied, somewhatambiguously.

  He shrugged. "It is very good of you to say it, Miss Knowles. I know Ishall fail. Can you expect anyone who has always lived within touch ofmillions, one who has spent more in four years at college than allthis range is worth--He cut my allowance repeatedly, until it was onlya beggarly twenty-five thousand."

  "Twenty-five thousand dollars!" exclaimed Isobel. "You had all thatto--to throw away in a single year?"

  "He cut me down to it the last year--a mere bagatelle to what I hadall the time I was at college and Tech.," replied Ashton, his eyessparkling at the recollection. "He wished me to get in thick with theNew Yorkers, the sons of the Wall Street leaders. He gave me leave todraw on him without limit. I did what he wished me to do,--I got inwith the most exclusive set. Ah-h!--the way I made the dollars fly!Before I graduated I was the acknowledged leader. What's more, I ledmy class, too--when I chose."

  "When you chose!" she echoed. "And now what are you going to do?"

  The question punctured his reminiscent elation. He sagged down in hissaddle. "I don't know," he answered despondently. "_Mon Dieu!_ To comedown to this--a common laborer for wages--after _that_! When I thinkof it--when I think of it!"

  "You are not to think of it again!" she commanded with kindlyseverity. "What you are to remember all the time is that you are now aman and honestly earning your own living, and no longer a--a leechbattening on the sustenance produced by others."

  He winced. "Was that my fault?"

  "No, it was your father's. I marvel that he did not utterly ruinyou."

  "He has! In his last will he cuts me off with only a dollar."

  "So that was it?--And you think that ruined you? I say it saved you!"she went on with the same kindly severity. "You were a parasite. Nowthe chance is yours to prove that you have the makings of a man. Youhave started to prove it. You shall not stop proving it. You are notgoing to be a quitter."

  "No!" he declared, straightening under her bright gaze. "I will notquit. I will try my best to make good as long as the chance is givenme."

  "Now you're talking!" she commended him breezily.

  "How could I do otherwise when you asked me?" he replied with a gravesincerity far more complimentary than mere gallantry.

  She colored with pleasure and began to tell him of the cattle andtheir ways.

  When they reached the corral she complimented him in turn by allowinghim to offsaddle her horse. They walked on down to the house andseated themselves in the porch. As he opened the bag of mail for hershe noticed that her hand was empty and turned to look back towardsthe corral.

  "Your receipt from the postmaster," she remarked; "I must have droppedit."

  He sprang up. "If you wish to keep it, I shall go back and find it foryou."

  "No, oh, no; unless you want it yourself," she replied.

  "Not I. The matter is closed, thanks to your kindness," he declared,again seating himself.

  He was right, in so far as they were concerned. Yet the matter wasnot closed. That evening, when Knowles and Gowan returned from theirday of range riding, the younger man noticed a crumpled slip of paperlying against the foot of the corral post below the place where hetossed up his saddle. He picked it up and looked to see if it was ofany value. An oath burst from his thin-drawn lips.

  "Shut up, Kid!" remonstrated Knowles. "I'm no more squeamish thanmost, but you know I don't like any cussing so near Chuckie."

  "Look at this!" cried Gowan--"Enough to make anybody cuss!"

  He thrust out the slip of paper close before his employer's eyes.Knowles took it and read it through with deliberate care.

  "Well?" he said. "It's a receipt from the postmaster to Ashton forthose letters I sent over by him. What of it?"

  "_Your_ letters?" asked Gowan, taken aback. "Did you write that onewhat is most particularly mentioned, the one to that big engineerBlake?"

  "No. What would I be doing, writing to him or any engineer? They'rejust the people I don't want to have any doings with."

  "Then if you didn't write him, who did?" questioned Gowan, his mouthagain tightening.

  "Why, I reckon you'll have to do your own guessing, Kid--unless itmight be Ashton did it."

  "That's one leg roped," said Gowan. "Can you guess why he'd be writingto that engineer?"

  "Lord, no. He may have the luck to know him. Mr. Blake is a mighty bigman, judging from all accounts; but money stands for a lot in thecities and back East, and Ashton's father is one of the richest men inChicago. I looked it up in the magazine that told about his helping toback the Zariba Dam project."

  "That's another leg noosed--on the second throw," said Gowan. "Anothertry or two, and we'll have the skunk ready for hog-tying."

  "How's that?" exclaimed the cowman. "You've got something up yoursleeve."

  "No, it's that striped skunk that's doing the crooked playing,"snapped Gowan. "Can't you savvy his game? It's all a frame-up--hissending off his guide and outfit, so's to let on to you he'd beenbusted up and kicked out by his dad. You take him in to keep hispretty carcass from the coyotes--which has saved them from beingpoisoned."

  "Now, look here, Kid, only trouble about you you're too apt to go offat half-cock. This young fellow may not be--"

  "He shore is a snake, Mr. Knowles, and this
receipt proves it on him,"broke in the puncher. "Ain't you taken him into your employ?--ain'tyou treated him like he was a man?"

  "Well, 'tisn't every busted millionaire would have asked for work, andhe seems to mean it."

  "Just a bluff! You don't savvy the game yet. Busted millionaire--_bah!_He's the coyote of that bunch of reclamation wolves. He comes out hereto sneak around and get the lay of things. We happen to catch himrustling. To save his cussed carcass, he lets out about who his dadis. Course he couldn't know we'd got all the reports on that ZaribaDam and who backed the engineer, nor that we'd know all about Blake."

  "Well?" asked Knowles, frowning.

  "So he works us for suckers,--worms in here with us where he can learnall about you and your holdings; ropes a job with you, and gets offhis report to that engineer Blake, first time he rides over to town."

  "Is that all your argument?" asked Knowles.

  "Ain't it enough?" rejoined Gowan. "Ain't he and that bunch all incahoots together? Ain't this sneaking cuss's dad either the partner orthe boss of Blake? Ain't Blake engaged in reclamation projects? Youshore see all that. What follows?--It's all a frame-up, I tell you.Young Ashton comes out here as a sort of forerider for his concern;finds out what his people want to know, and now he's sent in hisreport to Blake. Next thing happens, Blake'll be turning up with asurveying outfit."

  Knowles scratched his head. "Hum-m-m--You sure put up a mighty stiffargument, Kid. I'm not so sure, though.... Um-m-m--Strikes me some ofyour knots might be tighter. First place, there wasn't any play-actingabout the way the boy went plumb to pieces there at the waterhole.Next place, a man like his father, that's piled up a mint of money,isn't going to send out his son as forerider in a hostile country.Lastly, I've read a lot more about that engineer Blake than you have,and I've sized him up as a man who won't do anything that isn't squareand open."

  "Maybe he ain't in on the dirty side of the deal," admitted Gowan."How about this letter, though?"

  "Just a friendly writing, like as not," answered the cowman. "No,Kid--only trouble with you is you're too anxious over the interests ofDry Mesa range. I appreciate it, boy, and so does Chuckie. But that'sno reason for you to take every newcomer for a wolf 'til he proveshe's only a dog."

  "You won't do anything?" asked the puncher.

  "What d'you want me to do?"

  "Fire him--run him off Dry Mesa," snapped Gowan.

  "Sorry I can't oblige you, Kid," replied Knowles. "You mean well, butyou'll have to make a better showing before I'll turn adrift any manthat seems to be trying to make good."

  Gowan looked down. After a brief pause he replied with unexpectedsubmissiveness: "All right, Mr. Knowles. You're the boss. Reckon youknow best. I don't savvy these city folks."

  "Glad you admit it," said Knowles. "You're all wrong in sizing him upthat way. I've a notion he's got a lot of good in him, spite of hiscity rearing. I wouldn't object, though, if you wanted to test him outwith a little harmless hazing, long as you didn't go too far."

  "No," declined Gowan. "I've got my own notion of what he is. There'sjust one way to deal with skunks, and that is, don't fool with them."

  The cowman accepted this as conclusive. But when, a little later,Ashton met Gowan at the supper table he was rendered uneasy by thecold glint in the puncher's gray eyes. As nothing was said about thepostmaster's receipt, he could conjecture no reason for the look otherthan that Gowan was planning to render him ridiculous with some cowboytrick.

  Isobel had assured him with utmost confidence that the testing of hishorsemanship by means of Rocket had been intended only as a practicaljoke, and that Gowan would never have permitted him to mount the horsehad he considered it at all dangerous. Yet the fellow might nextundertake jokes containing no element of physical peril andconsequently all the more humiliating unless evaded.

  In apprehension of this, the tenderfoot lay awake most of that nightand fully half of the next. His watch was fruitless. Each night Gowanand the other men left him strictly alone in his far dark corner ofthe bunkhouse. In the daytime the puncher was studiously polite to himduring the few hours that he was not off on the range.

  The third evening, after supper, Gowan handed Isobel the horny,half-flattened rattles of an unusually large rattlesnake.

  "What is it? Do you wish me to guess his length?" she asked, evidentlysurprised that he should fetch her so commonplace an object. "I makeit four feet."

  "You're three inches short," he replied.

  "Well, what about it?" she inquired.

  "Nothing--only I just happened to get him up near the bunkhouse, MissChuckie. Thought I'd tell you, in case he has a mate around."

  "We must all look sharp. You, too, Mr. Ashton. They are more apt tostrike without warning, this time of year."

  "I know," remarked Ashton. "It's before they cast their old skin, andit makes them blind."

  "Too early for that," corrected Knowles. "I figure it's the long spellof the summer's heat. Gets on their nerves, same as with us."

  "They shore are mighty like some humans," observed Gowan. "Look at theway they like to snuggle up in your blankets on a cool night.Remember how I used to carry a hair rope on spring round-up?"

  "I remember that they used to crawl into the bunkhouse before thefloor was laid," said Isobel. She smiled at Ashton. "That was the DryMesa reptilian age. I first learned to handle a 'gun' shooting atrattlers. There were so many we had to make it a rule to kill everyonewe could. But there hasn't been one killed so near the house foryears."

  "They often go in pairs. This one, though, may have been a lonestray," added Gowan. He looked at his employer. "Talking about strays,guess I'd best go out in the morning and head back that Bar-Lazy-Jbunch. I can take an iron along and brand those two calves, sametrip."

  Knowles nodded and returned to his Government report. The two youngmen and Isobel began an evening's entertainment at the piano. Ashtonenjoyed himself immensely. Though so frank and unconstrained inmanner, the girl was as truly refined as the most fastidiously rearedladies of the East.

  At the end of the delightful evening he withdrew with Gowan to thebunkhouse, reluctant to leave, yet aglow with pleasure. Isobel had socharmed him that he lay in his bunk forgetful of all else than herlimpid blue eyes and dimpled cheeks. But after his two nights ofbroken rest he could not long resist the heaviness that pressedtogether his eyelids. He fell asleep, smiling at the recollection ofthe girl's gracious, "Good-night and pleasant dreams!"

  With such a kindly wish from her, his dreams certainly should havebeen heavenly. Yet he began the night by sinking into so profound asleep that he had no dreams whatever. When at last he did rouse to thedream-state of consciousness, it was not to enjoy any pleasant fantasyof music and flowers.

  He was lying in Deep Canyon, down at the very bottom of those gloomydepths. About him was an awful stillness. The river of the abyss wasno longer roaring. It had risen up, up, up to the very rim of theprecipices--and all the tremendous weight of its waters was above him,bearing down upon him, smothering him, crushing in his chest! Hesought to shriek, and found himself dumb.

  Suddenly an Indian stood over him, a gigantic Indian with feet setupon his breast. The red giant was a medicine man, for he clashed andrattled an enormous gourd full of bowlders.

  The rattle sounded sharper, shriller, more vibrant in the ears of therousing sleeper. His eyelids fluttered, rose a little way, and snappedwide apart. His eyes, bared of their covers, glared in utter horror ofthat which they saw. Their pupils dilated, their balls bulged as ifabout to burst from the sockets.

  The weight was still on his chest,--a weight far more to be dreadedthan a canyon full of water or the foot of an Indian Titan. It was aweight of living, quivering coils. Above those coils, clearlyilluminated in the full daylight that streamed through the open doorof the bunkhouse, there upreared a hideous gaping maw, set with fourslender curved fangs of dazzling whiteness.

  The snake's eyes, green as emeralds, glared down into the face of theman with such intense maligna
ncy that they seemed to stream forth acold evil light. Fortunately he was paralyzed with fright. Theslightest movement would have caused that fanged maw to lash down intohis face.

  Something partly obscured the light in the doorway. Ashton was tooterrified to heed. But the snake was more sensitive to the change inthe light. Without altering the deadly poise of its head, it againsounded its shrill, menacing rattle. The shadow passed and the lightstreamed in as before. The rattling ceased. There followed a pause ofa few seconds' duration--To the man every second was an age-longperiod of horror.

  A faint metallic click came from across the room. Slight as was thesound, the irritated snake again set its rattle to quivering. Thetriangular head flattened back for the delayed stroke at the ashenface of the man. The billowing coils stiffened--the stroke started. Inthe same instant came a report that to the strained ears of the mansounded like the crashing roar of a cannon.

  It sounded its shrill, menacing rattle]

  The head and forepart of the snake's body shot alongside his face,writhing in swift convulsions. The first touch of its cold scalesagainst his cheek broke the spell of horror that had bound him. Hejerked his head aside, and flung out his left hand to push the hideousthing from him. As his fingers thrust away the nearest coil, the headflipped around on its half-severed neck, and the deadly jawsautomatically gaped and snapped together. Two of the dripping poisonfangs struck in the cushion of flesh on the outer edge of Ashton'shand. With a shriek, he flung the dying snake on the floor and put thewounded hand to his mouth.

  "He struck you!" cried the voice of Isobel, "but only on the hand,thank goodness! Wait, I'll fix it. Lie still."

  She came swiftly across the room, thrusting a long-barreled automaticpistol into its holster under a fold of her skirt. Her other hand drewout a locket that was suspended in her bosom.

  "Whiskey! I'm bitten!" panted Ashton, sucking frantically at hiswounds. "Quick! I'm bitten. Give me whiskey!"

  "Steady, steady," she reassured. "It's not bad--only on your hand.Give it to me. Here's something a thousand times better thanwhiskey--permanganate."

  While speaking, she caught up his neckerchief from the head of thebunk and knotted it about the wrist of the wounded hand tightly enoughto check the circulation.

  "Now hold it steady," she directed. "Won't have to use a knife. Youtore open the holes when you jerked off the horrid thing."

  Obedient but still sweating with fear, he held up the bleeding hand.She had opened her locket, in which were a number of small,dark-purple crystals. Two of the larger ones she thrust lengthwise asdeeply as she could into the little slits gashed by the fangs. Anotherlarge and two small crystals were all that she could force into theopenings.

  "There!" she cheerily exclaimed. "That will kill the poison in shortorder, and will not hurt you a particle. It's the best thing there isto cheat rattlers,--just cheap, ordinary permanganate of potash. Ifpeople only had sense enough always to carry a few crystals, no onewould ever die of rattlesnake bites."

  "I've--I've heard that whiskey--" began Ashton.

  "Yes, and far more victims die from the whiskey than from the bites,"rejoined Isobel.

  "But a stimulant--"

  "Stimulant, then heart depressant--first up, then down--that'salcohol. No, you'll get only one poison, the snake's, this time. Sodon't worry. You'll soon be all right. Even had you been struck in theface, quick action with permanganate would have saved you."

  He shuddered. "Ah!... But if you had not come!"

  "It was fortunate, wasn't it?" she remarked. "I did not know you werein here. I was going up to the corral and heard the rattle as I camepast. It was so faint that I might not have noticed it, had not Kidtold of killing the rattler yesterday."

  Ashton stared fearfully at his blackening hand. Isobel smiled andbegan to unknot the neckerchief.

  "There is nothing to fear," she insisted. "That is due only to lack ofcirculation. You'll soon be all right. Come up to the house as soon asyou can and get two or three cups of coffee. I'll tell Yuki."

  She hastened out. When he had made sure that the still writhing snakewas far over on the floor, he slipped from his bunk and dressed asquickly as was possible without the use of his numbed hand. Shirt,trousers, boots--he stopped for no more, but hurried after Isobel.Whether because of the effects of the poison or merely as the reactionof the shock, he felt faint and dizzy. Several cups of hot strongcoffee, however, went far towards restoring him.