The voice quavered a little in reply: “I don’t know. Something sort of pushed me into it.”
“How did you come to start it?”
There was a long silence, then the husky reply came:
“I got a sickener last time—”
“Yes, I remember, at Waywing.”
“I got into the desert, and had hard times—awful for a while. I hadn’t enough to eat, and I didn’t know whether I’d die by hunger or fever or Indians—or snakes.”
“Oh, you were seeing snakes!” said Tim, grimly.
“Not the kind you mean; I hadn’t anything to drink—”
“No, you never did drink, I remember—just was crooked, and slopped over women. Well, about the snakes?”
“I caught them to eat, and they were poison-snakes often. And I wasn’t quick at first to get them safe by the neck—they’re quick, too.”