The other two turned on him.
"What do you mean, Horton?" they demanded.
"Just what I say," was the response. "This brave lad, who endangered his own life to save innocent spectators, is as sound as a dollar this minute."
"Then the snake was not a cobra," averred one of the others.
"It was a cobra," snapped Doctor Horton; "I saw it."
"Then its fangs had been pulled."
"They had not been pulled—I saw them, too."
"It is not possible, in that case, that the young man was bitten."
"Not bitten?" cried Doctor Horton ironically, lifting Matt's wrist, which he was holding. "Certainly he was bitten, and by one of the most poisonous snakes of which we have any knowledge. There's the mark, gentlemen, and it's as plain as the nose on your face. We were looking up at him, weren't we, when he was fighting the cobra and fighting, at the same time, to keep the flying machine from dropping into the crowd? And didn't we see him fling out his arm with the snake hanging to his wrist? The force in the throw of the arm—and there's some strength there, gentlemen, believe me," interjected the doctor, patting the biceps—"flung the reptile off. It fell, and so close to me that I had the pleasure of putting my heel on its head. Do you suppose for a minute that the cobra could hang to Motor Matt's arm without biting? I am surprised at you."