The Silver Canyon | Page 9

look out!"
Joses uttered these words with quite a yell as, dropping his rifle, he stooped, picked up a lump of rock from among the many that lay about on the loose stony hill slope they were climbing, and hurled it with such unerring aim, and with so much force, that the hideous grey reptile they had disturbed, seeking to warm itself in the first sunbeams, and which had raised its ugly head threateningly, and begun to creep away with a low, strange rattling noise, was struck about the middle of its back, and now lay writhing miserably amidst the stones.
"I don't like killing things without they're good to eat," said Joses, picking up another stone, and seeking for an opportunity to crush the serpent's head--"Ah, don't go too near, boy; he could sting as bad as ever if he got a chance!"
"I don't think he'd bite now," said Bart.
"Ah, wouldn't he! Don't you try him, my boy. They're the viciousest things as ever was made. And, as I was saying, I don't--there, that's about done for him," he muttered, as he dropped the piece of rock he held right upon the rattlesnake's head, crushing it, and then taking hold of the tail, and drawing the reptile out to its full length--"as I was a-saying, Master Bart, I don't like killing things as arn't good to eat; but if you'll put all the rattlesnakes' heads together ready for me, I'll drop stones on 'em till they're quite dead."
"What a fine one, Joses!" said Bart, gazing curiously at the venomous beast.
"Six foot six and a half," said Joses, scanning the serpent. "That's his length to an 'alf inch."
"Is it? Well, come along; we are wasting time, but do you think rattlesnakes are as dangerous as people say?"
"Dangerous! I should think they are," replied Joses, as he shouldered his rifle; and they tramped rapidly on to make up for the minutes lost in killing the reptile. "You'd say so, too, if you was ever bit by one. I was once."
"You were?"
"I just was, my lad, through a hole in my leggings; and I never could understand how it was that that long, thin, twining, scaly beggar should have enough brains in her little flat head to know that it was the surest place to touch me right through that hole."
"It was strange," said Bart. "How was it?"
"Well, that's what I never could quite tell, Master Bart, for that bite, and what came after, seemed to make me quite silly like, and as if it took all the memory out of me. All I can recollect about it is that I was with--let me see! who was it? Ah! I remember now: our Sam; and we'd sat down one hot day on the side of a bit of a hill, just to rest and have one smoke. Then we got up to go, and, though we ought to have been aware of it, we warn't, there was plenty of snakes about I was just saying to Sam, as we saw one gliding away, that I didn't believe as they could sting as people said they could, when I suppose I kicked again' one as was lying asleep, and before I knew it a'most there was a sharp grab, and a pinch at my leg, with a kind of pricking feeling; and as I gave a sort of a jump, I see a long bit of snake just going into a hole under some stones, and he gave a rattle as he went.
"`Did he bite you?' says Sam.
"`Oh, just a bit of a pinch,' I says. `Not much. It won't hurt me.'
"`You're such a tough un,' says Sam, by way of pleasing me, and being a bit pleased, I very stupidly said,--`yes, I am, old fellow, regular tough un,' and we tramped on, for I'd made up my mind that I wouldn't take no more notice of it than I would of the sting of a fly."
"Keep a good look-out all round, Joses," said Bart, interrupting him.
"That's what I am doing, Master Bart, with both eyes at once. I won't let nothing slip."
In fact, as they walked on, Joses' eyes were eagerly watching on either side, nothing escaping his keen sight; for frontier life had made him, like the savages, always expecting danger at every turn.
"Well, as I was a saying," he continued, "the bite bothered me, but I wasn't going to let Sam see that I minded the least bit in the world, but all at once it seemed to me as if I was full of little strings that ran from all over my body down into one leg, and that something had hold of one end of 'em, and kept giving 'em little pulls and jerks. Then I looked at Sam to