CHAPTER II.
BILLIE HAS A CLOSE CALL.
"Oh! Billie's fallen down in that rattlesnake den!" gasped Adrian, evenwhile he and Donald were jumping over the rocks as fast as their legswould carry them, and headed in the direction where just ten secondsbefore they had seen the fat chum waving his arms excitedly to attracttheir attention, only to suddenly slip and disappear from view.
In all their experiences with the clumsy Billie, the two boys probablynever had such a sensation of absolute horror sweep over them as at thatparticular minute.
They must have pictured all sorts of terrible results springing fromthis weakness on the part of Billie to do just the very thing he shouldhave avoided. For him to make a misstep, and fall into that hole in therocks where he had just told them dozens of poisonous snakes werecoiled, and wriggling about, was possibly the greatest calamity thatcould have happened to him. And it might be the last mistake poor clumsyBillie was ever apt to make in this world of woe.
Spurred on by fear, and almost dreading to peer into the pit, the twoboys reached the edge in a very few seconds. Both of them shut theirteeth hard as they proceeded to thrust their heads out in order to lookdownward.
What they saw gave them a new thrill.
Billie was there, but he had not fallen all the way to the bottom of thehole, it appeared. His old lucky streak seemed to still hold good, forhe had succeeded, somehow or other,--and Billie could never explain inwhat way it came about,--in clutching hold of the rocks as he fell, sothat he was clinging there, with his fat legs kicking wildly in space,and not more than five feet from the bottom of the rocky pit.
And just as he had so exultantly shouted when he wanted to attract hisresting companions to view the strange sight, the floor of the denseemed to be almost carpeted with squirming reptiles, as though thismight be a regular breeding place for rattlesnakes.
They were some of them monsters, while others seemed to be of thesmaller species so generally found on the plains, and usually inhabitingthe burrows of prairie dogs; but which are just as deadly as theirdiamond-back cousins.
The dropping down upon them of numerous small fragments of rock, causedby the scrambling of Billie when he tried to keep from falling, hadaroused many of the half dormant reptiles, so that they were makingquite a din with their rattles just then, and showing signs of suddenanger, as they coiled, and waited for the intruder to land among them.
Billie had been looking down at them, but appearing to know that hischums must have arrived above, he turned a white, appealing face uptoward them. Such fear the others had never seen in all their lives; butchances were their own faces must have been just as white at that sameinstant.
"Help me, boys, for goodness sake!" gasped poor Billie, as he squirmedthere, unable to find the slightest perch for his dangling feet, so thatall of his great weight came upon his arms alone, and they must havebeen sorely tried when he first clutched hold of the rough face of therock to check his descent.
"Hold on like everything, Billie!" called Donald, excitedly.
"Ain't I doing that same; but please get busy and start something tosave me, boys!" groaned the one in peril. "It's just awful hanging here,and listening to them use their old rattleboxes that way."
"How long can you hold out?" demanded Donald, "for if I could run overto our ponies and snatch up a rope, I'd have you out of that in ajiffy."
"Go!" pleaded Billie. "Anything, so that you're on the jump! I'll do thebest I know how to keep hanging here; but it's pretty tough on afellow!"
Donald had already disappeared, and was flying like the wind toward thespot where their mounts were fastened, leaping over rocks that stood inthe way as if they were next door to nothing.
Adrian, left with the lad who was in such desperate straits, busiedhimself in looking around, in the vague hope of discovering some meansfor rendering "first aid to the injured." He remembered seeing certainqueer vines growing from fissures in the rocks in some places, and ifone of these only happened to be within reaching distance it might provevaluable now.
Luck seemed to be with him, for what should he sight but an unusuallythick specimen of this same vine not ten feet away.
Snatching out his sharp-edged hunting knife, which he always kept inprime condition, Adrian sprang over to where he had discovered thistreasure.
"Oh! don't leave me alone, Adrian!" shrieked the fat boy, piteously; forhow was he to know what had caused the other to vanish from his agonizedview?
But Adrian was already cutting away fiercely; and although the vineproved very tough, he had it hacked through in next to no time, such wasthe vigor he put into his work.
Then back he sprang, trailing the vine with him; and when he againthrust his eager face over the edge of the pit, doubtless that was themost delightful vision poor alarmed Billie had ever seen in all hislife.
"Oh! ain't I glad you didn't leave me, Adrian!" he cried, almostwhimpering in his tremendous excitement.
"How are you holding out, Billie?" called the other.
"Only middling! It's getting worse and worse every second," replied theone who was hanging on so desperately below, some ten feet or more. "Yousee, I haven't got much of a hold, and I don't dare try and change mygrip because if I once started going there'd be no stopping me. IsDonald coming back yet, Ad, tell me please?"
"I don't think he's quite got to the horses yet, Billie!"
"Oh! my goodness! what will I do?" groaned the wretched lad, as he oncemore felt his gaze drawn down to the bottom of the pit by some horriblefascination which he could not resist.
"Keep up your courage, old fellow," said Adrian, feeling that at anycost he must prevent the other from giving way to despair, for thatwould surely cause his muscles to relax, and should this occur the endwas certain. "See, I've got a vine here, and I'm lowering the big end toyou as fast as I can. Perhaps now you might get a grip on that, if youfelt your hands slipping away from the rock. It's got a rough surface,and would hold better!"
"Thank you, Adrian, that sounds good to me; but hurry it along, please,for I'm afraid I'm slipping off right now!"
So the one above did hasten the descent of the vine; and in anothermoment he was gratified to realize that Billie had transferred his gripto that. The strain was tremendous, for Billie weighed almost as much asboth his chums put together; but Adrian had prepared for this by bracinghis feet against a rock, so there was small danger of his being pulledover the edge.
He could not begin to raise Billie alone and unaided, but he expected tohold fast until the coming of Donald.
Then again, Billie, having a new kind of grip now, was able to strainand draw until he had elevated himself a few feet, so that he could geta rest with his toes upon the very small ledge to which he had hithertobeen clinging with his hands.
"It's all right now, Adrian!" he sang out with sudden cheerfulness thatcontrasted queerly with the horror that had been in his voice only aminute previously; "I'm fixed different than before, and I reckon I canhold out till Donald comes up. Oh! you can keep on shakin' your oldrattleboxes down there; but this ain't the time you get Broncho Billie.But I tell you now, that was the closest shave I ever had happen to me,sure it was."
Donald soon came panting along, full of dire forebodings, because it hadtaken him considerably longer to go and return than he had expected; andthere was no telling what might not have happened to poor, tired Billiein the meantime. But as he had heard no shouts from Adrian, he kepthoping for the best.
When he saw how cleverly his chum had made use of the trailing vine thathad seemed to grow just where it could be utilized, as though Billie'sattendant good angel was as always on the job, Donald gave a faintcheer.
"Bully for you, Ad!" he cried, as he flung himself down by the edge ofthe rattlesnake pit, to lower the loop of his lariat; "trust you tothink up some smart trick, while dummies like me can only remember thatthey own a rope. Hi! Billie, can you kick your legs into that loop, andlet me draw it up under your arms?"
"Sure I ca
n, Donald; just try me," came from below; and then ensued avigorous shifting of the dangling lower extremities of the imperiledboy, until finally the expert user of the rope above managed to lassothem both; after which it was a simple thing to draw the loop to wherehe wanted.
Then the two above proceeded to pull Billie up. He scrambled over theedge with a red face, and a broad grin on the same that was just theopposite to that look of terror they had so lately seen there. But allthe same they were delighted to get him back unharmed; and both boyssqueezed his hand in a way that told Billie how tremendously they hadbeen aroused by his sudden peril.
"That was a silly slip of mine, sure it was," he admitted immediately;for Billie was always ready to own up to making blunders, which was onereason they found it so hard to condemn him; "and let's get away fromthis place as quick as we can, boys. Huh! no Gila Monster for me afterthis, I reckon. I've had as close a call to being stung as I ever wantto get. Gimme a chance to rest up a bit, and then I'll be ready to hikeout of this blessed region, where there's more snakes to the square footthan anywhere on earth, seems like."
Less than half an hour later the Broncho Rider Boys were returning tothe copper mine by the same tortuous route which they had taken to reachthe lofty place where the view had been worth all the trouble thejourney had cost them.
Billie was unusually quiet on the return trip. Truth to tell he wasfeeling as tired as though he had done the greatest day's work of hislife; for the strain on body and mind, while he hung there above thosehissing and rattling snakes, had been simply terrific. He knew that hewould feel it for several days; but his nature was such that pasttroubles sat very lightly on his mind; and he would soon be joking abouthis strange experience.
It was pretty certain however, that Billie had had his lesson; and afterthat should he have occasion to come within a certain distance of anysort of viper the fat boy was pretty apt to make sure of his footing;one experience of that kind ought to be quite enough.