Michael O'Halloran Part 73

"You cut out anything more!" said Junior tersely.

Jud nodded. After a while they started home, walking slowly and each one being particularly careful of and good to Mickey. When he had rested, he could see that it was only an accident; such an astounding one he forgot his bites and could talk of little else.

They made another long pause under a big tree, and Mickey felt so much better as they again started home, that Junior lagged behind, and Jud seeing, joined him. Junior asked softly: "Have any more?"

Jud nodded.

"What?" whispered Junior.

Jud told him.

"Oh that! Nothing in that! Go on!"

So they struck into the path they had followed from the swamp to the woods, when suddenly a warm, yielding, coiling thing slipped under Mickey's feet. With a wild cry he leaped across the body of a big rattlesnake that had been coiled in the path. As he arose, clear cut against the light launched the ugly head and wide jaws of the rattler, then came the sickening buzz of its rattles in mad recoil for a second stroke.

"Run Mickey! Jump!" screamed Junior.

"What is it?" asked Mickey bewildered.

"Rattlesnakes! Sure death!" yelled Jud. "Run fool!"

But Mickey stood perfectly still, and looked, not where the increasing buzz came from, but at them. They had no choice. Jud carried a heavy club; he threw himself in front of Mickey and as the second stroke came, he swung at the snake's head. The other boys collected their senses and beat it to pulp, then the dead mate it watched beside.

Junior glared at Jud, but when he saw how frightened he was, he knew what had happened.

Mickey gazed at the snakes in horror.

"Ain't that a pretty small parcel to deal out sudden death in?" he asked. "And if they're laying round like that, ain't we taking an awful risk to be wading through here, this way? Gee, they're the worst sight I ever saw!"

Mickey became violently ill. He lay down for a time, while the boys waited on him, and at last when he could slowly walk toward home, they went on. Jud and Sam left them at the creek, and Junior and Mickey started up the Harding lane. Suddenly Mickey sat down in a fence corner, leaned against the rails, and closed his eyes.

"Gee!" he said. "Never felt so rotten in all my life."

"Maybe that snake grazed you."

"If it did, would it kill me?" asked Mickey dully.

"Well after the yellow-jacket poison in your blood, and being so tired and hot, you wouldn't stand the chance you'd had when we first started," said Junior. "Do you know where it came closest to you?"

"Back of my legs, I s'pose," said Mickey.

"If it had hit you, it would leave two places like needles stuck in, just the width of its head apart. I can't find any-thing that looks like it, thank the Lord!"

"Here too!" said Mickey. "You see if it or the quicksands had finished me, I haven't things fixed for Lily. They might '_get'_ her yet. If anything should happen to me, she would be left with no one to take care of her."

"Father would," offered Junior. "Mother never would let anybody take her. I know she wouldn't."

"Well I don't," said Mickey, "and here is where guessing doesn't cut any ice. I must be _sure_. To-night I'll ask him. I'd like to know how it happens that sudden death has just been rampaging after me all this trip, anyway. I seemed to get it coming or going."

Junior did not hide his grin quickly enough.

"Aw-w-w-ah!" grated Mickey, suddenly tense and alert.

He sprang to his feet. So did Junior.

"Say, look here----" cried Mickey.

"All right, 'look here,'" retorted Junior. His face flamed Ted, then paled, and his hands gripped, while his jaw protruded in an ugly scowl.

Then slowly and distinctly he quoted: "Course I meant to put it to you stiff; I meant to 'niciate you in the ancient and honourable third degree of the Country all right, so's you'd have enough to last a lifetime; but I only meant to put you up against what I'd had myself in the fields and woods; I was just going to test your ginger; I wasn't counting on the _quicksand_, and the _live_ snake, finding its dead mate Jud fixed for you."

"So you were sneaking in the barn this morning, when we thought you were gone?" demanded Mickey.

"Easy you!" cautioned Junior. "Going after the bundle I promised Jud was _not_ sneaking----"

"So 'twasn't," conceded Mickey, instantly. "So 'twasn't!"

He looked at Junior a second.

"You heard us, then?" he demanded. "All of it?"

"I don't know," answered Junior. "I heard what I just repeated, and what you said about my being game, and exactly why I came back; thank you for _that_, even if I lick you half to death in a minute--and I heard that my own mother first fixed it up with you, and then father agreed. Oh I heard enough----!"

"And so you got a grouch?" commented Mickey.

"Yes I did," admitted Junior. "But I got over all of it, after I'd had time to think, but that third degree business; that made me so sore I told Jud about it, and he said he'd help me pay you up; but we struck the same rock you did, in giving you a bigger dose than we meant to.

Honest Mickey, Jud didn't know there was a _real_ quicksand there, and of course we didn't dream a live snake would follow and find the one the boys hunted, killed, and set for you this morning----"

"Awful innocent!" scoffed Mickey. "'Member you didn't know about the ram either?"

"Honest I _didn't_, Mickey," persisted Junior. "I thought steering you into the yellow jackets was to be the first degree! Cross my heart, I did."

Suddenly Mickey whooped. He tumbled on the gra.s.s in the fence corner and twisted in wild laughter until he was worn out. Then he struggled up, and held out his hand to Junior.

"If you're willing," he said, "I'll give you the grip, and the pa.s.sword will be, 'Brothers!'"

CHAPTER XVIII

_Malcolm and the Hermit Thrush_

"Mr. Dovesky, I want a minute with you," said James Minturn.

"All right, Mr. Minturn, what is it?"

"You are well acquainted with Mrs. Minturn?"

"Very well indeed!" said Mr. Dovesky. "I have had the honour of working with her in many concerts."