Part 5 (1/2)

Nan looked searchingly into the gloomy interior of the hut. It was now no home, whatever it may have been in the past. It was only the wreck of a dwelling.

The girl could see little at first save the bare floor, the heaps of rubbish in the corners, and the fact that the rafters of the floor above were no longer covered with boards--if ever they had been.

The ladder which led to the loft was in the far corner. There was not a stick of furniture in sight.

Suddenly Nan saw something moving in a streak of dusty sunlight that penetrated the side window. It was a pair of child's thin legs kicking in the air!

Above the knees was the little torn frock, and, looking higher, and looking aghast, Nan saw that the tiny girl was hanging by her hands from the rafters.

”Oh, my dear!” she began, and stepped over the broken sill.

Then she halted--halted as though she had been frozen in her tracks.

From the floor, almost at Nan's feet, it seemed, came a quick rustle--then a distinct rattle. The flat, brisk sound can never be mistaken, not even by one who has not heard it before. Wide-eyed, her breath leashed tight behind her teeth, Nan Sherwood stared about the floor. It was there, the coiled rattlesnake, almost under the bare, twitching soles of the hanging child's feet.

In these few pa.s.sing seconds the eyes of the girl from Tillbury had become so used to the semi-gloom that she could see the fear-stricken face of the imperiled child. Horror and despair looked out of the staring eyes. Her frail arms could not long hold the weight of her body.

She must drop, and the arrogantly lifted head of the rattlesnake, crested with wrath, was ready for the stroke.

In running up the ladder to the loft the child had doubtless dislodged the rattlesnake which, upon slipping to the floor of the hut, had a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of defense. The victim, flinging herself down between two rafters to escape, at once was in imminent danger of falling upon the angry snake.

The drop to the floor of the shack would not necessarily hurt the child, for the rafters were low. But a single injection of the poison of the serpent might be fatal.

These facts and conjectures had rushed into Nan Sherwood's mind in a flood of appreciation. She understood it all.

As well, she realized that, if the child was to be saved, she must perform the act of rescue. Before she could summon help to the spot the child's hold would slip and her tender body fall within striking distance of the snake.

Indeed, it seemed to Nan as though the little brown fingers were already slipping from the rough rafter. Her body stiffened as though she would leap forward to catch the child in her arms, as she fell.

But such a move might be fatal to herself, Nan knew. The serpent would change its tactics with lightning speed. Indeed, it sprang its rattle in warning again as though, with its beady, lidless eyes, it read Nan's mind.

The seconds pa.s.sed swiftly. The child did not scream again, but her pleading gaze rested upon Nan's face. Nan was her only hope--her only possible chance of escape.

Nor did Nan fail her.

One glance the girl gave around the doorway. Then she stooped suddenly, seized upon a huge stone and hurled it at the upraised, darting crest of the snake.

Down upon the writhing coils the stone fell crus.h.i.+ngly. The head of the snake was mashed, and the stone bounded across the floor.

Yet, as Nan leaped in with a cry and caught the falling child in her arms, a horrible thing happened.

The writhing, twisting body of the already dead snake coiled around her ankle and for that awful moment Nan was not at all sure but the poisonous creature had bitten her!

She staggered out of the hut with the child in her arms, and there fell weakly to the ground. Professor Krenner had been watching her from the car window, wondering at her recent actions. Now he leaped up and rushed out of the car. Several of the train crew came running to the spot, too, but it was the odd instructor who reached the fallen girl first, with the sobbing child beside her.

”Snake! snake!” was all the little one could gasp at first.

A brakeman ventured into the hut and kicked out the writhing body of the rattlesnake.

”Great heavens! the girl's been bitten!” cried one man.