Ben gave the rattlesnake a vigorous lash, which turned him on his back again, and sprang up the rocks.
"Have you killed him? Is he dead? Oh, Ben, he has struck her on her arm or hand, perhaps! Look, look—see if you can find the wound!"
Ben gave a hasty glance at the white face lying upon Ralph's shoulder, uttered a smothered humph, and with this emphatic expression turned to watch the common enemy. The snake had turned slowly over upon the moss and was slinking away through a crevice in the rocks. Ben uttered a mellow chuckling laugh as his rattles disappeared.
"Did you see him, the sneak? Did you see him steal off?" he said, looking at Ralph.
CHAPTER IV.
LINA COMES OUT OF HER FAINTING FIT.
Ralph lifted his white face to old Ben and broke forth fiercely:
"You should have crushed him—ground him to powder. He has poisoned all the sweet life in her veins. She is dying, Ben, she is dying!"
Ben threw down the ash branch and plunged one hand into a pocket in search of his tobacco box. With great deliberation he rolled up a quantity of the weed and deposited it under one cheek, before he attempted to answer either the pleading looks or passionate language of the youth.
"Mister Ralph, it's plain as a marlin-spike, you ain't used to snakes and wimmen. In that partiklar your education's been shamefully neglected. Never kill a rattlesnake arter he's shut in his fangs and turns on his back for mercy—its sneakin' business. Never think a woman is dead till the sexton sends in his bill. Snakes and feminine wimmen is hard to kill. Now any landshark, as has his eyes out of his heart, could see that Miss Lina's only took a faintin' turn, that comes after a skeer like hers, axactly as sleep stills a tired baby. Just give her here now, I'll take her down the river, throw a cap full of water in her face, and she'll be bright as a new dollar long before we get across."