Breathless and panting, he paused, leaning on his spade, while the hopes and fears, which so often, often, assail us on the threshold of some great enterprise, came thronging on with their mockery, causing him to stand irresolute, as if fearing to solve the mystery; but at length, after summoning all his strength, he struck the cask with his sharp spade, and the head fell in with a dull crash.
As he stooped to peer down into the gloom below, a pair of fiery eyes glared at him from the cavity, and, as he sprang back with a shudder, a sharp, whizzing rattle in the cask announced the presence of that dread reptile, the rattlesnake—a new and terrible danger, worse than the sting of poverty with all its terrors.
As Clifford stood frozen with horror, the slimy monster rose from out the cask, still sounding its angry alarm. A moment more, enraged and writhing, it coiled at his feet, its head erected, slowly swaying to and fro—a gigantic, threatening monster.
Its eyes glowed like coals of fire, and in the bright light shed by the lantern Clifford could see it darting its tongue and glaring with a look of indescribable ferocity and malignant hatred, to which nothing else in the world can be compared. Those who have faced an angry rattlesnake, and who still turn pale at its remembrance, or start from sleep with a cry of fear at the returning vision of terrible danger, will recall the awful rage and menace that glared from the eye of the angry serpent—a glance that unnerves the bravest man in the world instantly. The reptile only seemed to await a motion on Clifford's part to strike like a flash of lightning. Then, with a clammy shudder, young Warlow thought of the agony and speedy death that was certain to follow. At the tremor which involuntarily shook his frame at the thought, the hideous serpent crested its head and paused in its vibrations. "Now all is over," our young friend thought, and breathlessly awaited the shock.
Instantly the face of Mora Estill rose before him, a fleeting vision of loveliness; and with it came a realization of the love for her that had rapidly grown into an all-absorbing passion in their short acquaintance. He knew at once what had sent him out on this midnight search, and why he had begun to wish for wealth so eagerly of late:—It was because be craved fortune and a position which would equal that of the "Cattle King's" daughter. Yet even in this moment of deadliest peril he thought, with a grim smile, of the irony of fate—the reward of his first attempt at "fortune hunting."
While death stared at him from those glaring eyes, and the moments seemed to lengthen out to years, he thought of his friends at home, all unconscious of the dire fate that he was facing; then a wild longing for life seized him, and for the first time since the encounter he began to plan a way of escape.
The spade on which his hand rested was sharp and bright; but to raise it before the serpent could strike he knew was impossible; so he stood immovably eying the formidable reptile, which at length slowly uncoiled and glided away from his feet to an opposite corner of the pit. With a sigh of relief Clifford saw that the danger was lessened, yet he began to more fully realize the size of his deadly antagonist, which now reached twice across the yard-wide pit.
In moments of great danger we are apt to think with lightning-like rapidity, and quickly see any advantage that may arise. So it was with Clifford, who remembered that the rattlesnake always throws itself into a coil before striking; and as he saw it thus off its guard, with a quick movement he struck a violent blow at the snake's head and pinioned it to the earth—then throwing his full weight on the handle he felt the bones crunch beneath the sharp blade, while the reptile madly threshed its now headless body about and wrapped its jangling tail around his boot.
Springing out of the pit, with a desperate leap, young Warlow disengaged the writhing, heavy monster from his foot, and with the iron rod threw it away into the grass; then sinking down upon the ground, unnerved and exhausted, he lay, too weak to move for several minutes. But when he remembered the unexplored cask, he sprang to his feet again, and after listening cautiously a moment, and hearing no further evidence of danger, he dropped lightly down into the pit, carelessly tramping on the grim serpent-head that but a few moments before was so full of threatening danger.
Anxiously he thrust the long rod down into the cask. No rattle responded; but the despairing fact became apparent: the cask was empty!