The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-07-07
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| wonder will she bite at IS as she did
 at S?" unused Dick, barring his wrist and
 looking at the white scars where the
 two ST. all, sharp upper teeth had struck
 when she flashed at him with her eyes
 sparkling and bright as the gems sewcd
 l.. his belt. "A game little devil. that.
 That's Ally worth noosing"
 Elsie professed to he pleased at having
 Dick home again. and Dudley Venner,
 who had grown almost desperate, wei
 comed any change in the current of his
 daughter life that might save her from
 the frightening, wild paroxyisms of dan
 gerous mental exultation or the sullen
 peryersions of disposition from which
 some fearful calamity might come to her
 self or others.
 The boy had grown into a handsome, dashng young man of the Spanish type.
 anu to work off his superfluous animal spirits he took mad rides about the coun- try on the half-tamed steed of the wind blown plains. Elsie fascinated him in | manner-not a wholly agreeable one and puzzled him. However. with an eye to
 her fortune, he said to himself, "T1l tame her after we are married" and tried to make downright love to her, but with in- different success.
 They were sitting alone one day and Elsie wore around her neck her singular
 ornament the golden torque which she had worn at the party. Dick was seized win a desire for examining it, and reached out his hand to touch It. Elsie threw back her hesd. her eyes narrowing
 and her forehead drawing down so that 1t seemed to Dick that he could see her
 head actually fiattening itself. He stared
 at her in momentary fear. and daredevil as he was, he did not dare repeat his at- tempt
 rv;tI bot Dick asked himself Blessed if she don't
 scare me sometimes And at the moment h. felt the two white scars on his arm
 burn as they had done the day the doc tor burned them with the stick of gray caustic.
 "Fo- one thing" he decided to himself later, she's in love with that school maste, up at the institute" And he
 poured out upon the unconscious head of Bernard LanRdon some choice Spanish
 exoletil es, and began at once to consider the removal of this stumDling block in
 the road of his ambition. The Spanish hal Of him plotted craftiy and soon murderously; but his New England half
 added caution and a calm considera-
 ton of results, which the Latin alone would have scorned to consider. t the very moment that one deadly enemy of Bernard was thus plotting a ainst him, the school teacher was star ing spellbound in the ulamOnd eyes or an- other enemy-enemy not only of him, but
 of everything that breathed the breath of
 life-a great 'rattlesnake eoied to strike.
 He had wandered up "The Mountain and
 had reached the ledge of evil name. There he found the mouth of a small cave and looked in His look was returned by the glitter of two diamond eyes. small, sharp, cold. He stood fixed struck Into stiffness, staring back with dilating pupils and sudden numbness of fear that cannot move. as in the terror of dreams. There rang through his ears the long. loud stinging whir as the reptile shook his many-jointed rattles and gathered his
 heavy loops for the fatal stroke. Nature
 was before man with his artificial an-
 aesthetics the crotalus paralyzes before 1t strikes.
 He waited in a trance, helpless, as if
 he had been inhaling chloroform. Then
 it seemed to him if the deadly eyes
 were losing their flame and fascination
 and were growing dull and tame. He heard slight breathing in his ear. and.
 recovering his powers suddenly. he half turned, to see Elsie Venner beside him, staring motionless into the reptiles eyes,