The Two-Gun Man | Page 7

pain formed in his eyes. Then he fastened the
knife by tucking the haft under the rope. His movements had been very
deliberate, but sure, and in a few minutes he hobbled to his pony and
swung into the saddle.
He had seen men who had been bitten by rattlers--had seen them die.
And he knew that if he did not get help within half an hour there would
be little use of doing anything further. In half an hour the virus would
have so great a grip upon him that it would be practically useless to
apply any of the antidotes commonly known to the inhabitants of the
country.
Inquiries that he had made at Dry Bottom had resulted in the discovery
that the Two Diamond ranch was nearly thirty miles from the town. If
he had averaged eight miles an hour he had covered about twenty-four
miles of the distance. That would still leave about six. And he could not
hope to ride those six miles in time to get any benefit from an antidote.
His lips straightened, he stared grimly at a ridge of somber hills that
fringed the skyline. They had told him back in Dry Bottom that the
Two Diamond ranch was somewhere in a big basin below those hills.
"I reckon I won't get there, after all," he said, commenting aloud.
Thereafter he rode grimly on, keeping a good grip upon himself--for he
had seen men bitten by rattlers who had lost their self-control--and they
had not been good to look upon. Much depended upon coolness;
somewhere he had heard that it was a mistake for a bitten man to exert
himself in the first few minutes following a bite; exertion caused the
virus to circulate more rapidly through the system. And so he rode at an
even pace, carefully avoiding the rough spots, though keeping as
closely to the trail as possible.
"If it hadn't been a diamond-back--an' a five-foot one--this rope that
I've got around my leg might be enough to fool him," he said once,
aloud. "But I reckon he's got me." His eyes lighted savagely for an
instant. "But I got him, too. Had the nerve to think that he could get
away after throwin' his hooks into me."

Presently his eyes caught the saffron light that glowed in the western
sky. He laughed with a grim humor. "I've heard tell that a snake don't
die till sundown--much as you hurt him. If that's so, an' I don't get to
where I c'n get some help, I reckon it'll be a stand off between him an'
me as to who's goin' first."
A little later he drew Mustard to a halt, sitting very erect in the saddle
and fixing his gaze upon a tall cottonwood tree that rose near the trail.
His heart was racing madly, and in spite of his efforts, he felt himself
swaying from side to side. He had often seen a rattler doing that--flat,
ugly head raised above his coiled body, forked tongue shooting out, his
venomous eyes glittering, the head and the part of the body rising
above the coils swaying gracefully back and forth. Yes, gracefully, for
in spite of his hideous aspect, there was a certain horrible ease of
movement about a rattler--a slippery, sinuous motion that partly
revealed reserve strength, and hinted at repressed energy.
Many times, while watching them, he had been fascinated by their
grace, and now, sitting in the saddle, he caught himself wondering if
the influence of a bite were great enough to cause the person bitten to
imitate the snake. He laughed when this thought struck him and drove
his spurs sharply against Mustard's flanks, riding forward past the
cottonwood at which he had been staring.
"Hell!" he ejaculated, as he passed the tree, "what a fool notion."
But he could not banish the "notion" from his mind, and five minutes
later, when he tried again to sit steadily, he found the swaying more
pronounced. The saddle seemed to rock with him, and even by
jamming his uninjured foot tightly into the ox-bow stirrup he could not
stop swaying.
"Mebbe I won't get very far," he said, realizing that the poison had
entered his system, and that presently it would riot in his veins, "but I'm
goin' on until I stop. I wouldn't want that damned rattler to know that
he'd made me quit so soon."
He urged Mustard to a faster pace, even while realizing that speed was

hopeless. He could never reach the Two Diamond. Convinced of this,
he halted the pony again, swaying in the saddle and holding, for the
first time, to the pommel in an effort to steady himself. But he still
swayed. He laughed mockingly.
"Now, what do you think of that?" he