ments were scarcely discernible. Suddenly his well arm shot out, seizing, snatching at that loathsome body.
There was a quick movement of the snake, far too rapid to be anticipated or avoided. The head drove forward. He felt the white hot flash of pain.
The rest was a haze of horror to him. It was rather as if he were a spectator at something concerning someone else. He did not command his body. He knew only, vaguely, what was happening.
There came the feel of a sleek body in his hands, the lash and writhing against his arms of something that fought to break away; then the grinding of his heel upon a head, and the flinging, against him, in death agony.
Everything faded out, then.
His return to consciousness was marked by a hazy lightness of memory.
In the bitten arm he could feel, mounting higher and higher, the numbness that had marked the other experience. His heart, too, seemed to be acting queerly—just as it had done before.
Red Flannel Mike's broad back was bent from him as he mixed at something in a basin. They had carried him to his own tent.
Coulter's holster was hanging from the tent pole. The numbness crept higher in his arm. Soon would begin the cutting of his flesh, the darting flames of pain…
He could not go through with that again! He could not bear it. Better far to finish with the gun what Mike had stopped before.
Softly he slid the gun from the holster, and raised it for action. His finger pressed upon the trigger.
The weapon dashed suddenly from his hand.
"What the hell!" roared Mike. "You fool, what's the matter with you?"
"Give—give me that gun!"
"You're as bad as Baldy Jenkins. Been in the woods all his life—and mistakes a coach whip for a moccasin, just because both of 'em are darkish.
"That wasn't any more moccasin than a polar bear… Yes, 'course he struck you. Any snake 'll do that—but it ain't always poison. Your arm ain't even go'ner be sore.
"Never mind about this gun. I'll give it back to you—later on."
