The Peril Finders Part 22

"That seems a pity about the water, Griggs," said Ned, as they rose slowly on. "Oh how I should like a good swim in a clear river!"

"Wouldn't be amiss; but when you can't get beef, mutton ain't bad."

"I knew that," said Chris dryly.

"But you don't seem to know that when you can't get plenty of water for bathing, nice clean sand isn't a bad thing for a good dry wash. It's better without soap too."

Chris laughed.

"Ah, you may grin, but it's a nasty habit, I think, that of rubbing grease turned into what you call soap all over your skin. Look yonder on that patch of sand," he continued, pointing, for his keen eyes seemed to miss nothing.

"Snakes!" cried Chris, bringing his rifle sharply round.

"Nay, nay, don't shoot. What's the good? You might scare something better."

"Better!" said Ned, with his upper lip curling up and the corners of his mouth going down.

"Yes; I don't care about snake," said the American dryly, "but I hev heard that some of the Injuns cut the rattlers' heads off and roast them in wood-ashes, and that they're uncommonly good."

"Ugh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ned.

"Yes, that's just how I feel, my lad," continued Griggs, in his calm, dry manner. "I'm like that countryman of mine who was hard up for tuck, out in the backwoods, and when some one asked him afterwards how he managed to live, he said he shot and cooked the crows."

"Horrid!" cried Ned.

"Yes, that's what t'other one said; and then he says, 'But surely you don't like crows?' 'No,' says the first one, 'I don't kind o' hanker arter them.' It's the same here, I don't kind o' hanker arter snake; but it's all a matter o' habit."

"Oh, ugh!" cried Ned.

"Ah, you may say ugh, but it all depends; when a fellow's hungry he's got to eat something, and I don't see why a snake shouldn't be as good to eat as an eel."

"But they're poisonous," cried Chris.

"Only in the head, and it's easy to cut that off. Now, look yonder; there lie four fine fat rattlers, fast asleep on that patch of sand.

We're not exactly short of food, but a little extra would be very useful, and as rattlers are so plentiful it seems almost a pity that we can't make them good to eat, and knock over all we come across."

"How can you talk in that horrid way, Griggs!" cried Chris, with a shudder.

"I don't see nothing horrid about it. Snake's a nice clean enough sort of thing; and, as I say, it's all a matter of habit. They tell me frogs are delicious, but I'd as soon eat snake."

"Reptiles! Ugh!" cried Ned.

"So's turtle reptile," said Griggs. "Nasty-looking thing too. Might just as well eat alligator. I've a good mind to get down and cripple two or three of those rattlers, so as to try how they eat."

"No, no, don't!" cried the boys in a breath, and before the others grasped what he was about to do, Chris pulled up, slipped off his mustang, gathered up a handful of small stones, and sent a shower amongst the sleeping reptiles.

In an instant there was a scattering of sand and a rush for safety, the snakes taking refuge amongst the brush around, leaving not a sign of their presence.

"There goes dinner for six," said Griggs dryly. "I say, there's plenty of those creeping gentry about here."

"Almost the only inhabitants," said Chris. "Well, if we do have to come to eat 'em, perhaps we shall get monuments set up to us in our honour for introducing a new kind of useful food of which there's plenty being wasted in the far west. Pity they're so small. They'd shrink too in the cooking. Why, a hungry man would be able to polish off one easy."

"Do you want to make me ill, Griggs?" said Ned, shuddering.

"Certainly not, my lad."

"But I say, Griggs," cried Chris, "how big do those things grow--how long were the largest you ever saw?"

"Oh, they don't come quite up to boa constrictors. Let me see, the largest I ever saw measured was--was--"

"Twenty-five feet?"

"Nay, nay, nay, not quite as long as that, but quite six feet, which is bigger than I like, after all. Most of 'em's little, like those.

Dangerous sort of things, and don't the horses and mules understand!

Don't catch them going near a rattler if they know it."

"My nag has shied four times this morning at the poisonous brutes," said Chris.

"Seems to me," said Griggs, "that they like this part of the country.

I'd be pretty careful about walking about when we get down. It'd be as well to ride about a bit when we stop for camping, so as to scare the beggars away. We don't want to get bitten."

But from that time, oddly enough, they saw no sign or trace of the reptiles. The sun grew hotter and hotter, but neither in sandy level nor rugged stony patch was a snake seen basking. Nothing was visible but lizards, and they disappeared when the doctor called a halt in the most rugged part of a stony waste where there was an overhanging cliff and a broken gully which promised at a distance to be the home of a spring; but though it had evidently been at one time a pool overhung by rocks, there was not a trace of moisture. It afforded a little shelter, however, in an overhanging part where there was a rugged projecting shelf, and there being nothing better, the halt was made there, only to prove too hot a one for endurance, the rocks seeming to glow, and keeping off such air as was astir as well as the sun; so after a short time the doctor decided to go on once more in search of some more likely place.

In those hot, weary hours the elasticity and cheerfulness of the boys died away. In the early morning it had been all laugh and chat and notice of everything they pa.s.sed that seemed novel, but with the coming of noon quite a change came over them, and Ned took to sighing from time to time, then to murmuring, and at last after a long, low expiration of the breath--

"Oh dear," he cried, "I am getting so tired of this!"

"Well, you are a fellow!" grumbled Chris. "Only an hour or two ago you talked as if you liked it."

"Ah, I wasn't so hot and f.a.gged out then. It gets so jolly monotonous.

Here we go on, ride and tramp, ride and tramp, day after day, seeing nothing but sand and sage-brush, sand and sage-brush. Always tired, always being scorched by the sun till one's giddy, and--"

"Here, father!" cried Chris, but without turning his head.

"What are you going to do?" said Ned, in a hurried whisper.

"Call father up, for you to grumble to him."

"Nonsense!" whispered Ned. "Don't be a stupid donkey. Can't I say a word or two without you wanting to tell tales?"

"I don't want to tell tales; I want for you to tell father yourself.

You talked as if you had had enough of it, and wanted to go back."

"Who wants to go back?" cried Ned angrily. "Nice thing if one can't say what one likes about one's feelings! I only said what I did because I was hot and tired, and it is so tiresome, one day just like another, and not a bit of adventure to go through. Why, I expected no end of fun in that way--I mean, no end of excitement."

"Do you understand what he means, Griggs?" said Chris. "I think you've upset him by talking about cooking and eating snake."

"It wasn't that," said Griggs. "He must have got out of bed the wrong way this morning."