He let him drop on the ground again as if he had unexpectedly picked up a snake, and sprang back grasping his rifle at the ready. Could this be some infernal trap? Had Felipe been deceiving him?
"Did you lie to me?" There was a dangerous ring in his voice. "I asked you if you were alone, and you said you were, and here's the man who's your confederate, by your own confession."
"Before God, I didn't know he was here," cried the boy very earnestly. "What's the matter with him? He's dying."
"He deserves to die," said the prospector, looking down at him.
"Whiskey," moaned Backus brokenly; "I'm snake-bit."
"Snake-bit, are you?" said the prospector, still suspicious. "Well, if you are that's rather rough on you. Where are you struck?"
"In the face," said the wretched man. "For God's sake help me; this pain's maddening. I'm going to die."
"Lift his head up, Felipe," said Stephens, "and let me see the place. Great Scot! I should say you were snake-bit, and powerful bad, too," he added, as the young Indian lifted the head of the fallen man and turned it so as to show the face. It was a ghastly sight! The whole of the left cheek and side of the head were swollen out of all recognition, and the puffed and strained skin was so discoloured that it looked like a mass of livid bruises.
His first suspicion had been that the cunning storekeeper had set Felipe on him, and then, finding that the Indian had failed in his murderous attack, had adopted the heartless but too common ruse of shamming sick, in order to get his antagonist at a disadvantage. Stephens had sprung backward, and was standing now with his Winchester, ready at any moment to pump lead into his would-be murderers; but the awful condition of his enemy was proof sufficient that there was no sham about this case. Holding his rifle in one hand, he advanced, and with the other aided Felipe to raise the fallen man to a sitting posture.