Still controlling his movements, he looked casually around, then arose as if tired of sitting. As he stood up, however, his gun was in one hand, and he loosely swung its twin muzzles to cover the pack. Feigning a yawn, he stepped lazily toward the pine, dropping the mirror into a trousers pocket as he moved. With a quiet click his safety-catch slid, and two solid charges—of buckshot—were ready for instant use.
A good stride away from the blankets he turned aside and drifted around the butt of the pine. Then he halted, sorely puzzled. The man who should have been lurking there was not. The box, too, had vanished. Not even the snake——
But yes, the snake was there. It was curled just below and behind the pack, hidden from any eye except one searching for it; three feet of silent death, ready to strike its fangs into the hands of the man stooping to lift his back-burden before slinging it on his shoulders. Even now, with that man’s eye on it, it was poising in venomous alertness, its tongue vibrating again like a blur.
Douglas stepped onward a little, lifted his gun, and fired. The snake rolled writhing away, blown apart. Instantly he wheeled, the other barrel ready to meet any menace. But still nothing showed itself. The growth beyond seemed empty.
Warily watching, he stepped to his pack, swung it up one-handed, and stood a minute longer scanning his surroundings. Seeing nothing new, he got into the straps and strode away. Only a few rods to his left, he knew, ran a faint trail—the path by which he had come here after finding a steep slope which had enabled him to climb Dickie Barre. The trail would be empty, of course; the skulking assassin in the felt hat would be so cunningly hidden in the encompassing tangle that no mere stranger could find him. No use hunting him.
But as he emerged into that path he stopped, startled. There, only a few feet away, stood the man.
So astounded by the other’s audacity was Douglas that he stood gaping. The sinister hillman grinned guilelessly.
“Howdy, stranger!” he greeted. “Scairt ye, did I? Was that ye a-shootin’ jest now?”
Douglas swallowed an impulse to leap at him. Still amazed, he glanced rapidly over him. Below the ophidian eyes and flat nose which he had seen before, he now noted a coarse mouth, tobacco-yellowed teeth, scraggly black beard about a week old, long lean frame, and nondescript garments. His curving hands were empty. His snake-box was not with him now. Nor had he any gun.
The man moved slightly, shifting a foot. In the movement was something reptilian—a sinuous smoothness that was serpentine. And in the short sentences which he had just spoken was a repellent hiss.