Into the Primitive Part 29

"I'm not bitten-- Let go, I say! It struck in the fold of my skirt."

"For G.o.d's sake, Jenny, don't lie! It's certain death! I saw the mark--"

"That was a thorn. I drew it out an hour ago."

Blake looked up into her hazel eyes. They were blazing with indignant scorn. He freed her, and rose with clumsy slowness. Again he glanced at her quivering, scarlet face, only to look away with a sheepish expression.

"I guess you think I'm just a d.a.m.ned meddlesome idiot," he mumbled.

She did not answer. He stood for a little, rubbing a finger across his sun-blistered lips. Suddenly he stopped and looked at the finger. It was streaked with blood.

"Whew!" he exclaimed. "Didn't stop to think of that! It's just as well for me, Miss Jenny, that wasn't an adder bite. A little poison on my sore lip would have done for me. Ten to one, we'd both have turned up our toes at the same time. Of course, though, that'd be nothing to you."

Miss Leslie put her hands before her face, and burst into hysterical weeping.

Blake looked around, far more alarmed than when facing the adder.

"Here, you blooming lud!" he shouted; "take the lady away, and be quick about it. She'll go dotty if she sees any more snake stunts. Clear out with her, while I smash the wriggler."

Winthrope, who had been staring fixedly at the beautiful coloring and loathsome form of the writhing adder, started at Blake's harsh command as though struck.

"I--er--to be sure," he stammered, and darting around to the hysterical girl, he took her arm and hurried her away up the glade.

They had gone several paces when Blake came running up behind them.

Winthrope looked back with a glance of inquiry. Blake shook his head.

"Not yet," he said. "Give me your cigarette case. I've thought of something-- Hold on; take out the cigarettes. Smoke 'em, if you like."

Case in hand, Blake returned to the wounded adder, and picked up his club. A second smashing blow would have ended the matter at once; but Blake did not strike. Instead, he feinted with his club until he managed to pin down the venomous head. The club lay across the monster's neck, and he held it fast with the pressure of his foot.

When, half an hour later, he wiped his knife on a wisp of gra.s.s and stood up, the cigarette case contained over a tablespoonful of a crystalline liquid. He peered in at it, his heavy jaw thrust out, his eyes glowing with savage elation.

"Talk about your meat trusts and Winchesters!" he exulted; "here's a whole carload of beef in this little box--enough dope to morgue a herd of steers. Good G.o.d, though, that was a close shave for her!"

His face sobered, and he stood for several moments staring thoughtfully into s.p.a.ce. Then his gaze chanced to fall upon the great crimson blossom which had so nearly lured the girl to her death.

"h.e.l.lo!" he exclaimed; "that's an amaryllis. Wonder if she wasn't coming to pick it--" He snapped shut the lid of the cigarette case, thrust it carefully into his shirt pocket, and stepped forward to pluck the flower. "Makes a fellow feel like a kid; but maybe it'll make her feel less sore at me."

He stood gazing at the flower for several moments, his eyes aglow with a soft blue light.

"Whew!" he sighed; "if only-- But what's the use? She's 'way out of my cla.s.s--a rough brute like me! All the same, it's up to me to take care of her. She can't keep me from being her friend--and she sure can't object to my picking flowers for her."

Amaryllis in hand, he gathered up his bow and club. Then he paused to study the skin of the decapitated adder. The inspection ended with a shake of his head.

"Better not, Thomas. It would make a dandy quiver; but then, it might get on her nerves."

When he came to the ant-hill, he found companions and honey alike gone.

He went on to the cocoanuts. There he came upon Winthrope stretched flat beside the skin of honey. Miss Leslie was seated a little way beyond, nervously bending a palm-leaf into shape for a hat.

"I say, Blake," drawled Winthrope, "you've been a deuced long time in coming. It was no end of a task to lug the honey--"

Blake brushed past without replying, and went on until he stood before the girl. As she glanced up at him, he held out the crimson blossom.

"Thought you might like posies," he said, in a hesitating voice.

Instead of taking the flower, she drew back with a gesture of repulsion.

"Oh, take it away!" she exclaimed.

Blake flung the rejected gift on the ground, and crushed it beneath his heel.

"Catch me making a fool of myself again!" he growled.

"I--I did not mean it that way--really I didn't, Mr. Blake. It was the thought of that awful snake."

But Blake, cut to the quick, had turned away, far too angry to heed what she said. He stopped short beside the Englishman; but only to sling the skin of honey upon his back. The load was by no means a light one, even for his strength. Yet he caught up the heavy pot as well, and made off across the plain at a pace which the others could not hope to equal.

As Winthrope rose and came forward to join Miss Leslie, he looked about closely for the bruised flower. It was nowhere in sight.

"Er--beg pardon, Miss Genevieve, but did not Blake drop the bloom--er--blossom somewhere about here?"

"Perhaps he did," replied Miss Leslie. She spoke with studied indifference.

"I--ah--saw the fellow exhibit his impudence."

"Ye-es?"

"You know, I think it high time the bounder is taken down a peg."

"Ah, indeed! Then why do you not try it?"

"Miss Genevieve! you know that at present I am physically so much his inferior--"

"How about mentally?"

Though the girl's eyes were veiled by their lashes, she saw Winthrope cast after Blake a look that seemed to her almost fiercely vindictive.

"Well?" she said, smiling, but watching him closely.

"Mentally!--We'll soon see about that!" he muttered. "I must say, Miss Genevieve, it strikes me as deuced odd, you know, to hear you speak so pleasantly of a person who--not to mention past occurrences--has to-day, with the most shocking disregard of--er--decency--"

"Stop!--stop this instant!" screamed the girl, her nerves overwrought.

Winthrope smiled with complacent a.s.surance.

"My dear young lady," he drawled, "allow me to repeat, 'All is fair in love and war.' Believe me, I love you most ardently."

"No gentleman would press his suit at such a time as this!"