“Maybe they are touchy about their own property!” Tom decided.
However the youth proposed to show why he had been so quick: he touched Nicky’s arm and the trio followed him to a spot not far away, at the edge of the jungle. Here were several large earthen urns or shallow pots. Each had a lid.
The boy called and a companion issued from the brush: there was a brief pantomimic exchange between them and the latest arrival turned back into the woods to come forth again with a cage-like enclosure made of braided heavy vine stems, stiff enough to retain its shape. Within it, hissing and striking, was a furious snake.
“That’s a rattler,” confided Cliff. “See its tail!”
“And it’s angry, too—I hope he isn’t going to release it!” said Tom. Evidently the youth had another purpose.
He took a forked stick and taking the lid off one of the jars, he reached into its depths, which were very unpleasantly odorous, and brought out on the stick a piece of meat. It was in a very bad state of decay already; however the youth, lifting a small slat opening in the top of the withe cage, lowered the stick with the meat on it: then he did all in his power to infuriate the snake by prodding at it with the meat on the stick.
In a snake’s rage the rattler struck and struck repeatedly at the meat. Each time, as the boys could see, more of his poison was left in the meat. After a moment the boy took out the stick and returned the meat to the jar, covering it. The snake was killed, the Indians’ signs indicating that his usefulness was ended. But the white youths could see another cage in the brush.
“I see,” Nicky said. “They let the snake strike till the old meat is full of poison and then they leave it in these jars for awhile till the poison gets all through the meat and it gets pretty terrible. But then what?”
He saw very quickly. The youth brought some of the arrows and dipped the thorn points, repeatedly, then set them aside to dry.
“He didn’t want you to shoot with a poisoned arrow,” Tom explained. “The least nick in your skin with one of them might end in fearful agony.”