Adventure Magazine Cover — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

150 to the right; and, anyway, his attention was diverted almost at the instant he shot by a sudden chorus of whirrings, one sounding close at his left, the others for the most part behind him! AS IF built on springs he flung him- self around. He could see nothing but the low, green brush gently vi- brating in a breath of air from the distant sea. Yet the whirrings continued and he could place their source almost to a foot— hearing serving for vision. ~ Yet he could not see them, and that fact tortured him more than if he had beheld the big reptile he had just wounded slithering straight toward him with malice of revenge gleaming in its beady eyes and its needle- like tongue flickering venomously. He knew now that he had stumbled on not one rattlesnake, nor two, but a nest of them. This whole area of brush and honey- combed limestone rock was alive with them! The Eden he had chosen for his final consid- eration of a great question had numerous serpents in it. He was as one surrounded—trapped—un- expectedly. It seemed inconceivable in a place of such natural, peaceful beauty. Down to the west the sea spread a placid blue-and-silver cloth under the sparkling sunlight. From far down the valley of the Mission Viejo to the east he could hear the lowing of cattle.. To his nostrils came the odor of sun-warmed earth and the coolness of clean, high air touched with the aroma of brush that he had bruised in passing or un- detfoot. Yet, every other second, beauty of scene and balm to sense were jarred by a whirr that passed over his nerves like a new file over satin. His gaze had been temporarily turned back of him and to the left, searching for the rattlesnakes which sounded close but did not appear. Then upon the quick, jumpy springs of nervousness he spun around to his former position, startled by the noise of a faint rustling in the low brush, as of some- thing slowly, stealthily stealing upon him unawares. It was the larger of the two visible rat- tlers. The other was hardly moving; per- haps dead and merely quivering. But the big reptile had straightened itself out and seemed to be coming toward him, dragging its broken tail after it. Whether it just happened to come his way Adventure in a blindness of pain, in a blind attempt to escape, he had no means of knowing. Only the sight of the thing, its full length now apparent, its black, unshifting eyes catching gleams from the sunlight and its thin lips moving curiously as it rapidly projected the needlelike tongue—the whole aspect of the thing filled him with a momentary paroxysm of horror. At pointblank he fired. Twice—thrice he pulled the trigger, and each time the pis- tol flashed. Again—and the weapon made no response. ‘The clip was exhausted. But he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had hit the big snake again. Its powers of locomotion were clearly dimin- ished some more, although it was again squirming violently and seemed far from dead. The pistol was empty and the rest of his shells were on that rock, the containing box weighting down that paper, the edges of which fluttered in the fitful breeze from the sea. That little box was but a few yards away, yet between him and it sounded at intervals the warning note of invisible rattlesnakes. He dared not move in any direction. Presently the voice of that subcon- scious alter ego drifted.in from a long dis- tance. “Keep cool and think!” it whispered. “Make a false move and you are a dead man. If you’re going to be bitten, friend Leders, you're just going to be bitten; and getting the shells after you are struck won’t help you much. “You stand a better chance if you keep still. Don’t move a hand or foot—par- ticularly a foot. These low shoes you’re wearing without leggings are pretty poor for brushwork. You haven’t any rattlesnake cure with you and probably wouldn’t know how to use it if you had. You don’t know any of the old native cures—herbs and that sort of thing. “See what you get for not being inter- ested in finding out things that were outside of your business,’ continued the subcon- scious voice}in a curious, insistent monotone. ‘Every time the subject was snakes you put down the story, or whatever it was. Didn’t like to read about snakes—eh? Gave you the horrors. “How do you know they did? (Watch the big fellow—he’s moving again.) Oh, yes. You read about rattlers once in ‘Two COMMIGLOOOKS (C@