"Hardly!" Freddy said dryly. "I was simply saving you a lot of pain, and perhaps something worse than that. Take a look."
Dave twisted around, half expecting to see a squad of Nazi soldiers crouching behind him. What he really saw was the mashed body of a three-inch long lizzard-like creature. It looked like a cross between a lizzard and a grasshopper, and there was a suggestion of a lobster about it, too. The body was long and tapering, like that of a lizzard. At the head two tiny horns with lobster-like claws at the end stuck out in front. And there were four long legs on either side of the body.
"Gosh, what's that?" he asked. "Some kind of a desert bug?"
"The worst you can meet in the desert," Freddy replied. "It's a scorpion. See that barbed point that forms the end of his tail? That's his stinger. You can see it's sort of hook shaped. Well, he strikes with it by whipping it up over his back. Five minutes after a scorpion stings you, you're in horrible pain, and your whole body begins to swell up. It can easily be fatal unless you get medical attention at once. You were about to put your hand right down on top of it, my friend."
Dave's face paled, and he shuddered violently.
"Gee!" he breathed in an awed tone. "Gee whiz! Remind me to remember you in my will, Freddy. Gosh! The enemy is just a small part of what you have to fight in desert warfare, I'll say. Boy, oh boy, Freddy, you're my pal for life, and no fooling. Wow."
"I was just lucky enough to spot it in time," Freddy said. Then, getting to his feet, "I think, though, we'd better search this place to see if it has any brothers or sister hanging around. In case I do fall asleep, I'd hate to wake up with one of the beggars sitting on my nose."
"Sleep?" echoed Dave, as they started searching the shelf of rock, and gripped a shoe ready for action. "I won't do any sleeping. After that close call I'll have the jitters for a week."
Freddy just grinned and said nothing. The search took about fifteen minutes, but no brother or sister scorpions were found lurking about ready to avenge a death in the family. So presently they relaxed again, ate some of their emergency rations, and each drank half of the water left in Freddy's bullet-creased canteen.
"Well, that sure helped," Dave said, leaning back against the shelf wall. "I'm beginning to feel like a new man already. Now, if that sun will only slide into high gear and get across that sky, everything will be jake."