What was that moving in the grass? He had noticed a sort of something before. He threw up his right hand in a threatening gesture, to frighten the intruder away.
Instantly he got his answer, and an icy wind seemed to ruff his hair—that insistent, dry, shrilling sound that will make a man’s blood turn cold if anything will—the whirring defiance of a rattlesnake!
Jim thought quick and hard, with chills and fever coursing over him ad libitum. He did not want to waken and frighten the boy. He managed to slip his arm out without disturbing the sleeper. But now! There wasn’t a club around except the short sticks of the fire. A two-foot stick is not the proper equipment for rattler hunting, except to those born with nerves so strong that they do not hesitate to catch Mr. Crotalus by the tail and snap his head off.
Jim thought of the rope he had used for a cinch, and made for it with his eye on the snake, lest the latter should approach closer to the boy.
With a deep thankfulness for the heft of the rope, he returned and struck with all the strength of his big body, and pounded away in a sort of crazy rage, although the first stroke had done the business.
He snapped the sweat from his brow as he looked down at the still writhing reptile.
“My God! What might have happened if the boy hadn’t waked me?” he thought. The superstition of the miner rose in him rampant. “I believe that kid’s going to bring me good luck,” he said. “Darned if I don’t. Well, I could stand some.”
He took up the body of the rattler on a stick and heaved it far away, then lit his pipe.
“I don’t think I care for any more sleep to-night,” he laughed. “Like Ches, it ain’t that anything will hurt me out here, but I’m everlastingly scared.”
He watched the night out, revelling in his enjoyment of the mystery of the coming morning, that phase of the day which never ceases to be unreal, and which calls out of the watcher sentiments and emotions he is a stranger to for the rest of the day.