“Did he finally pull through?”
“With the loss of a leg. If he hadn’t had that off pronto, gangrene would likely have set in and he’d have gone.”
“But this serum—where do you get it?”
“I don’t know. We got it of a man who made it. First he injected into a mule a tiny drop of the venom.”
“How did he get the venom?”
“Killed a snake. You know the poison is in a tiny sac at the root of each fang. Well, after he had given the mule the first dose and he had recovered, he tried a larger one, then a still larger one, and so on, every few weeks for a year or more, until the mule’s blood serum had developed enough anti-toxin to make him immune to rattlesnake bite.”
“But then what?”
“He let some of the mule’s blood, separated the serum, sterilized it, and put it up in sealed tubes, which he kept in the cellar. This serum is injected into the victim’s blood with a hypodermic syringe, and if it is used before he has collapsed, it will cure him every time. We really ought to have brought some along, just in case of extreme emergency. I have, however, a bottle of permanganate of potash crystals,” and he showed a little hard rubber tube two and a half inches long, one end of which contained the crystals and the other a well sharpened lancet, as the stuff has to be put right into the wound. This outfit, he explained, had only cost a dollar, and was so tiny it could be carried right on the person when in danger of being snake bitten. However, it has to be used instantly, (within three or four minutes at the outside), “if it is to neutralize the corroding acid of the poison and do any good.”
That night a bon-fire built up into a log cabin with a tepee of pine fringed poles atop sent the sparks flying, but was not uncomfortably hot except on their faces. These they shaded with their hat brims.
“I wonder why there is so much difference in Indians,” mused Ace. “When Dad and I visited the Hopis, there, on our way to the Grand Canyon, we were impressed by their high degree of civilization. Like all the Pueblos, they raised good crops, had a regular government, and even an art. And look at these Digger Indians, filthy, thieving creatures, grubbing for roots like wild animals, eating slugs and lizards, because they are too lazy to cultivate a piece of ground!”