The Two-Gun Man | Page 6

saddle,
turning completely over and alighting upon his feet. He stood erect for
an instant, but the momentum had been too great. He went down, and
when he tried to rise a twinge of pain in his right ankle brought a
grimace to his face. He arose and hopped over to a flat rock, near where
his pony now stood grazing as though nothing had happened.

Drawing off his boot, Ferguson made a rapid examination of the ankle.
It was inflamed and painful, but not broken. He believed he could see it
swelling. He rubbed it, hoping to assuage the pain. The woolen sock
interfered with the rubbing, and he drew it off.
For a few minutes he worked with the ankle, but to little purpose. He
finally became convinced that it was a bad sprain, and he looked up,
scowling. The pony turned an inquiring eye upon him, and he grinned,
suddenly smitten with the humor of the situation.
"You ain't got no call to look so doggoned innocent about it," he said.
"If you'd been tendin' to your business, you wouldn't have stepped into
no damned gopher hole."
The pony moved slowly away, and he looked whimsically after it,
remarking: "Mebbe if I'd been tendin' to my business it wouldn't have
happened, either." He spoke again to the pony. "I reckon you know that
too, Mustard. You're some wise."
The animal was now at some little distance from the rock upon which
he was sitting. He arose, hobbling on one foot toward it, carrying the
discarded boot in his hand. He thought of riding with the foot bare. At
the Two Diamond he was sure to find some sort of liniment which,
with the help of a bandage, would materially assist nature in----
He was passing a filmy mesquite clump--the bare foot swinging wide.
There was a warning rattle; a sharp thrust of a flat, brown head.
Ferguson halted in astonishment, almost knocked off his balance with
the suddenness of the attack. He still held the boot, his fingers gripping
it tightly. He raised it, with a purely involuntary motion, as though to
hurl it at his insidious enemy. But he did not. The arm fell to his side,
and his face slowly whitened. He stared dully and uncomprehendingly
at the sinuous shape that was slipping noiselessly away through the
matted grass.
Somehow, he had never thought of being bitten by a rattler. He had
seen so many of them that he had come to look upon them only as

targets at which he might shoot when he thought he needed practice.
And now he was bitten. The unreality of the incident surprised him. He
looked around at the silent hills, at the sun that swam above the
mountain peaks, at the great, vast arc of sky that yawned above him.
Hills, sky, and sun seemed also unreal. It was as though he had been
suddenly thrust into a land of dreams.
But presently the danger of the situation burst upon him, and he lived
once more in the reality. He looked down at his foot. A livid, pin-point
wound showed in the flesh beside the arch. A tiny stream of blood was
oozing from it. He forgot the pain of the sprained ankle and stood upon
both feet, his body suddenly rigid, his face red with a sudden,
consuming anger, shaking a tense fist at the disappearing rattler.
"You damned sneak!" he shouted shrilly.
In the same instant he had drawn one of his heavy guns and swung it
over his head. Its crashing report brought a sudden swishing from
beneath the grass, and he hopped over closer and sent three more
bullets into the threshing brown body. He stood over it for a moment,
his teeth showing in a savage snarl.
"You won't bite any one else, damn you!" he shouted.
The impotence of this conduct struck him immediately. He flushed and
drooped his head, a grim smile slowly wearing down his expression of
panic. Seldom did he allow his emotions to reveal themselves so
plainly. But the swiftness of the rattler's attack, the surprise when he
had not been thinking of such a thing, the fact that he was far from help
and that his life was in danger--all had a damaging effect upon his
self-control. And yet the smile showed that he was still master of
himself.
Very deliberately he returned to the rock upon which he had been
sitting, ripping off his coat and tearing away the sleeve of his woollen
shirt. Twisting the sleeve into the form of a rude rope, he tied it loosely
around his leg, just above the ankle. Then he thrust his knife between
the improvised rope and the leg, forming a crude tourniquet. He twisted

the knife until tears of