Adventure Magazine Cover — page 155: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Rabbit Quickly he aimed at the lifted head of the rattlesnake and pulled the trigger. The trigger did not yield. Then he remembered. The weapon was “‘on safe.”’ He noticed that his fingers trembled as he unlocked the pistol action. “Keep cool!’ his subconsciousness whis- pered to him. ‘“That’s death in front of you!” : He pulled himself together, aimed again at the slightly wavering head of the ser- pent, and fired. He missed, the bullet send- ‘ ing up a spurt of white dust from a bit of limestone broken off from the honeycombed rock among the brush. Ere Leders could try again, the rattle- snake not moving from its posture of de- fense, from close at his right came another nerve-scraping whirr! Instantly Leders glanced in that direc- tion, but without moving his head or lower- ing his arm, he had again leveled at the enemy in front. There was another rattlesnake there, about twelve feet away. It was emerging from the honeycombing of the rock, or pos- sibly, alarmed by the shot, seeking cover of it. The leveled arm swung quickly around and Leders fired a snapshot at.the second reptile. Luck was with him—pure luck. The bullet caught the snake about the thick- est part of its body and crippled it, without however, killing. Leders felt the thrill of “‘first blood.” He knew that, even if this second rattlesnake did not die presently, it could not come nearer him—in a hurry, at least. All he had to do was to keep half-an-eye on it while he devoted the other eye-and-a-half to the big, ugly thing in front of him. It was still there, about seven feet away. It was still coiled, the head, like that of a spear, swaying slightly on the gracefully up- curved neck, the tail intermittently lifting and sounding its scalp-chilling note. ‘Keep cool!’ whispered the alter ego of subconsciousness. ‘Take a little more care with the next shot. Suppose you aim low!” But Leders himself, with that attention to detail which is a peculiarity of taut nerves, found himself wondering why the big snake was colored differently from that one which was Squirming in crippled agony at his right. He was thinking of this trivial thing while he steadied the weapon over his left forearm and took aim again at the loathesome mon- 149 ster in front of him. They both had the same shape, although in different sizes and the back of each was patterned faintly with diamond figures in grayish outlines. But the hue of the body-color of the smaller snake was darker than that of the big rattle- snake in front of him. That was of a fierce brick-red darkening toward the head and setting off the diamond pattern more vividly. They were not of the same variety, he found himself concluding. Then they were hardly likely to be mates. He thought not, and the thought added to the unpleasant- ness of the situation. If there were two— not mates—there might possibly be more than two. , He had drawn the bead he wanted on the big fellow—just where the foreground and its body met. Somewhere he had heard or read something about—trajectory? Was that the word? But as he was about to pull the trigger, the rattlesnake, as if sensing its peril, stirred, lowered its head, uncoiled itself and began slithering off in retreat. As it went Leders was surprized to note that it was a larger snake even than he had thought. Its body was as thick as his forearm. Its full length he could not determine on account of the brush. A kind of rage seized upon Leders. After allthis— He felt that it ought to pay with its life. “Don’t let it escape!’ whispered the alter ego. ‘Kill it!” Leders took a step after the retreating reptile, the pistol raised ready to shoot at opportunity. At the first movement in pur- suit the rattlesnake again coiled itself into the posture of defense. ° Up went Leders’ pistol to his forearm again. He fired, but not this time at the head. ‘Taking no further chance of missing he shot into the densely coiled body. With the bark of the automatic the rep- tile gave a mighty squirm and shot two- thirds of its body-length blindly upward— like a flung stick. Then it fell to the ground and became convulsed with mighty writhings. The slug, although Leders did not know it then, had grazed one coil and broken through another at a point about twelve inches from the tail, The reptile was by no means out of the fight. But Leders thought it was, like that other . CORMICLOOKS (E@)