The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-07-16


Between the hills the shallow basin lay
baked and breathless. Over 1t the tense
air quivered with heat. Within, no bird
| fiuttered nor water purled nor green
plant raised its head. Only the desert
children, sagebrush and greasewood
and long-spined cactus, gray but never
| dying, lived on there In the drought,
sterile and forbidding as the land which
gave them birth
| Everywhere was silence upon the
place. everywhere was irnmobility, save
where the man lay and where beside
| him the bound snake whirred and
writhed and ratified in the impotent
fury Of fear.
The man lay stretched on the hot
earth stark naked, his face turned 10
the sky. A buckskin thong passed
across his throat and was drawn taut
between. two roots of sage-bru The
moose which held his ankles was Sc
cured about clump of CROSSWORD
and both arms, thonged at the wrists,
stretched wide as in crucifiXion. Heavy
| bands of buckskin spanned his body so
that TO the prisoner there were but
two possible movements. He could turn
his head from side to side. facing on
the one hand the snake, on the other
the miniature forest sagebrush; and he
could clench and unclench his pinioned
hands.
In this last freedom the final ingenui-
ty of savage captors had found express
sion. With the left hand tight clinched
the snakes wild stroke fell just short
of its aim. Should sleep or insensibil-
ity relax the fingers the reptiles head
might overlap them.
Since early morning, through the in
creasing heat of the day, the man had
lain there, grim and silent as the gray
hills around him, save when now and
then he raised his hoarse voice in de-
fiant shouts. The snake, on the other
hand, struggled and fought unceasing
ly against the cord which held him,
striking impartially at 1t, at the just
removed fingers or at the wooden stake
to which the cord was tied, grovelling
his body in the sandy earth, writing
and tugging with protruding tongue,
and all the while translating in Whirr
and hiss the blind fear of his captivity.
Sometimes the man turned his head
to watch; once or twice when the
snakes movements tagged he slightly
stirred his fingers in the sand. the ruse
each time rewarded by the swift spring
and fruitless stroke. But mostly he lay
still, ali mis- mind bent on endurance.
The man had been placed there to
die. He knew it and the knowledge
tinged his thoughts with strange
curiosity. There were three ways in
which death might reach him; through
the snake, through sunstroke or by the
weary route OF thirst and hunger The
second and gu. ckest of these ways the
light mountain air, vibrantly hot
though it might be. rendered improb-
able. For the snake, it was a part Of
the mans torment that at any minute
he might stretch forth his hand and
by the movement invite an end, brief
indeed, but horrible to the mind, doubly
horrible TO the strained imagination.
There was one other chance. An un-
expected rainstorm, heavy night dew
in that barren place, would so stretch
the slender buckskin thong which held
the RATHER that unaided he might reach
and strike his victim. This was the
element of uncertainty in the grim
problem. This it was that sent the
mans eyes searching the bare horizon
with a look half dread, half longing.
On one of these weary journeys of
sight a tiny speck of black above the
western hills attracted him-a steady
pin-point of the dazzling blue. He
shut his eyes a moment in order to
look again the more intently. and when
he opened them, 10, the dark points
were two. He watched them uncom-
prehendingly, as slowly and steadily
high in the air they moved from west
to east When at last in midheaven
the suns sheer strength beat down his
gaze. he was the lonelier for loss of
this one sign Of movement
The sense of heat had by now grown |
into anguish. The mans exposed body |
drew and quivered beneath the suns
rays as though each inch of 1T were en- |
dowed with a separate life. Unseen |
insects brushed and f1uttered upon ii, |
leaving beneath their light pressure a |
trail like fire on the blistered surface. |
The snake lay prone, exhausted almost |
beyond striking The man, noting it. |
smiled grimly and scraped his fingers |
nOisily in the loose earth. AS the snake |
whirled to front the challenge he curled |
his hand close with a taunt for its flu |
tile effort.
He was thus engrossed when sudden |
" across his face swept a sense of de- |
licious GOODNESS. He turned his head: |
close above him almost within touch |
of q free hand a great black bird. car |
rion in every movement, lowered on
steady, outSpread wings. It's shadow |
fell across his face; its eyes, beadlike
and glistening and greedy, looked |
straight into his own.
For an instant they stared thus, man
and bird. Then with cry the man
flung himself against his bonds, strug
Cling and straining at them for escape
from this new horror On his body,
dry till now, the sweat poured forth in
streams. Blood gushed from his nos
triIs With shrieks, with oaths, with
words of prayer, he fought
against the fate which held him.
Not once but many times the strug-
gle was repeated. When at last, eX-
hausted. his convulsed body fell back
to quiet, the bird was gone. Shudder
ingly the man raised his eyes. Far up,
half lost in blue, but ready, tireless, 1t
hung above him.
Turning his blanched cheek to the
sand he fell into a sort of sleep. All
through the waning day he slept,
through the approach of night and the
swift desert change from heat to cold.
When he awoke the first pale amethyst
IF dawn was in the sky The snake
was sleeping, not as snakes are wont
20 sleep IL freedom, head tucked TO tail
and sinuous fold tapping on fold. but
With his swollen body back-thrown and
stiffened against the stake which held
lim. caught mid-struggle by insensi-
oility.
The man turned his head to face him.
"Hey, rattlerl" he called cheerily.
and scraped some grains Of sand to-
ward the recumbent body
But when he saw the start and shud-
L. L IL. IL I,