CHAPTER VITHE KNOCK-OUT
Douglasdeliberately swung the pack from his back and dropped it. Against it he leaned his gun, making sure, as he did so, that he had restored the safety-lock. As he faced Snake Sanders he caught the black eyes fixed again on the weapon, and in them glinted the same light of cupidity which had been there before.
“Right purty gun ye’ve got, stranger,” Snake admired. “Don’t look sensible, though, without no hammers onto it. What’s one o’ them guns cost?”
“Oh, several dollars. But what about this business of yours?”
“It’s like I tell ye.” Snake dragged his gaze away from the shotgun. “Do business with me an’ ye’ll git what ye want. Otherways ye git nothin’—but trouble.”
“So? And who’ll make the trouble? You?”
“Me? Huh! I don’t have to. Ye’ll jest fall into it.”
“Fall into it. Sure it won’t come crawling up on me from behind?”
The black lashes flickered.
“What ye mean by that?”
“Your name’s Snake.”
Sanders’ beady stare beat into his inscrutable face.Presently the serpentine man grinned and subtly relaxed.
“Names don’t hurt. Think I’d try to do ye after I got my money, mebbe? That ain’t my way, stranger. Folks calls me Snake ’cause I can handle snakes. They don’t never bite me. I can tromp right round ’em into my bare feet, an’ pick ’em up into my bare hands, an’ they lemme alone. I can talk to ’em—snake talk—an’ they mind. If I’d of been over yender ’fore ye kilt that snake o’ yourn, now, I could have sent him away jest by talkin’ to him.”
His gaze never wavered as he talked. He gave no sign of guilt. Unaware that he had been observed in the little round mirror, he was sure there was nothing to connect him in this man’s mind with the fact that a copperhead had lurked beside the pack, and he was bold enough to make capital of the presence of that reptile. Evidently he was proud both of his name and his diabolical gift.
“Ye must have hearn o’ me,” he went on. “I’ve done business before. Nobody round here knows it, o’ course. I keep my tracks covered. But they must have told ye outside ’bout Snake Sanders. I’m him.”
Douglas kept the disgust out of his face. He wanted to know just how deep was this man’s duplicity. He had not yet learned that it was absolutely bottomless.
“I’ve heard the name. People around here don’t monkey with you much, do they?”
A hissing laugh came through the yellow teeth, and for once the eyes showed a glint of amusement.
“No they don’t. I’ve got this hull place right into my hand, mister. Folks step wide o’ me. Some fellers has got brash an’ throwed buckshot at me, but they don’t no more. They’re dead. Others has learnt.”
“I see. Those fellows stepped on snakes, maybe?”
“Mebbe. I ain’t sayin’. But come on, stranger, we can’t talk here all day. Who d’ye want? How much?”
“I think,” was the slow answer, “that the party I’m interested in just now is out of reach.”
Snake looked blank. Reaching smoothly into a pocket, he drew out a plug of tobacco, bit off a chunk, and chewed.
“Got away clean, ye mean. Ain’t into here nowheres? Huh! Don’t be too sure. There’s lots o’ hide-outs into here that ye dunno ’bout. I know ’em. I can git anybody—man, woman, or chile. An’ there’s more’n one way to skin a skunk. If yer man ain’t too well knowed, why won’t ’nother man do?”
Again the insinuating wink.
“Meaning?”
“Aw, come off! Ye know. Fix it onto some feller we can git. Take him out, fix up yer case, railroad him an’ git yer money. Think I dunno how you detectives work? Ye must think I’m simple. It’s done right ’long—grab a feller that ain’t got no friends an’ send him up. What chance has a feller here got when he gits drug into the courts outside? Puh!” He expectorated profusely and waited.
Douglas laughed out in contempt. He took a coupleof slow strides forward. Snake shifted again, and his eyes narrowed once more.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” the blond man derided. “I’m no detective. I’m hunting nobody. I’m in here for—my health. See?”
Snake saw—or thought he did. Instantly he changed front.
“I knowed it. Ye needn’t jump onto me, now. I was jest a-tryin’ ye out. If ye was a real detective ye’d be down snoopin’ round houses, not a-hidin’ out up here. Wal, ye come to the right place, stranger. Where ye from? What’d ye do? Go on, tell a feller. I’ll keep it dark. Got money, o’ course. Gimme some an’ I’ll fetch ye all the feed ye want.”
“And fetch the officers along too, when they come.”
“Aw no. That talk I jest give ye was all moonshine—not a true word into it. I was jest makin’ sure o’ ye, I tell ye. Now I know ye I’ll——”
“Shut up!” Hampton’s anger broke out. “I’ve been making sure of you, too. You’re a liar. You’re a treacherous sneak. You’d sell a hunted man to me—you’d sell an innocent man to me—you’d sell me, too. You think I’m after somebody, eh? Well, you’re right. I’m after the man who thought he was going to get my gun and money, the man who didn’t get them and is trying to trap me now, the man who sneaked up and let that copperhead out of the box! I’m after Snake Sanders! And I’ve got him!”
So rapid had been his words, so swift was his following leap, that Snake stood flat-footed as a big fistsmacked into his face. He was knocked headlong backward.
Into the bushes he sprawled with a crash of breaking branch and twig. Into the bushes Douglas jumped after him. But Sanders, though dazed by the impact of the blow and the shock of finding himself caught, was neither senseless nor helpless. He wriggled over and seemed to curve upward. Head-first, like a striking reptile, he threw himself at the legs of the man above. His punisher lurched over him and fell.
Snake’s lean frame wriggled forward again and started up. But he was not quite free. Without waiting to rise, Douglas darted a hand backward and clamped it around one bare ankle. Holding his grip, he rolled over, twisting and yanking the trapped leg.
The hillman tottered and lost his footing. But even before he hit the ground for the second time he lashed out in air with his free foot. His heel thumped into the blond man’s face, snapping his head back like a fist-blow. Hissing furiously, Snake jerked up his leg and let drive again. The fierce foot-punch missed this time, for its mark had ducked aside and the leg shot over Douglas’ shoulder. Promptly it was seized, held, forced down.
Both men now were in a grotesque posture for fighting. Snake’s legs were spread, with his antagonist sitting between them and clutching a foot on each side, while Snake himself sat on one booted ankle, pinning it down. But the advantage was decidedly with Sanders, for both his hands were free. He shot them straight for the other’s throat.
His arms were struck up and his savage clutch failed. His feet were freed, but the hands which had gripped them now were fists, shooting short-arm jolts into his jaw. And, short though those blows were, they crunched his teeth together with a force that made him blink groggily and throw himself aside.
An instant later he found himself grappled. Douglas was clinching him, shoving him down, striving for a leg-hold with his knees and relentlessly forcing one of his arms up behind his back. Douglas’ eyes were ablaze with wrath and his jaw set like a rock. Now he had this treacherous reptile in a real grip, and he meant to smash it. And Snake, reading the grim purpose in the face of the man against whose back he had loosed creeping death, felt fear stab through him.
Heretofore the sinister hillman had fought only in a flurry of surprise and rage—though he would not have neglected to make his work complete if once he got the upper hand. Now the fury of desperation fired him. He snaked himself over sidewise, wriggled a leg loose, twined it around the booted leg beside it, and, by a curling twist, eased the strain on his pinioned arm. His yellow fangs fixed themselves in his enemy’s shoulder. His free hand clawed for the blue eyes.
Douglas released his arm-hold, evaded the gouging nails by a backward jerk of the head, got both hands to his foe’s throat, tore him loose. Both scrambled to their knees and up on their feet. Both struck with savage fists at the same instant. Both blows landed.
Squarely between the eyes Snake’s knotty fistcracked. Douglas saw a red flash, followed by floating rings of flame. His own knuckles tingled from their impact with a bristly chin. Vaguely he saw the face beyond the wavering fire-spots fade backward. His other fist, swinging for it, hit nothing.
For an instant he dug his knuckles into his eyes, trying to clear his sight. Then he squinted around. Snake was down again, clawing at the ground, trying to rise. He jumped for him—stubbed a toe against an unnoticed rock—stumbled and sprawled.
As he pushed himself up, raging, Snake got to his haunches and lurched at him in a clinch. Douglas threw himself into the wiry arms and grappled for a hold of his own. And then for a few minutes it was a straining, kicking, punching rough-and-tumble, each fighting with all he had.
Again and again each secured a throat-hold but lost it. Over they rolled, kicking whenever a foot came free, slugging with either fist or both, striving to dash each other’s head against stone or root, heaving and wrenching until they had tumbled out of the brush and into the trail where they had first stood. In Douglas grew amazement at the strength and endurance of his antagonist. In Snake’s brain gnawed a keener fear of the man on whom he had exhausted in vain every foul trick he knew. Neither could quite overcome the other. Both were gasping and growing dizzy from the violence of their combat. And they fought on.
Suddenly, in a final squirming spasm, Snake twisted himself free. Before Douglas could clutch him againhe had rolled away and was shoving himself up. The blond man got his feet under him and pitched to a stand. Then, too short of breath to renew the duel at once, they balanced themselves and glowered.
Snake was a hard sight, and Douglas was not much better. The hillman’s face was gashed by cuts and smeared with mingled blood and tobacco-juice, his right eye was shut, his mouth was a blubbery pulp, his clothes hung in rags. The other’s bloodshot eyes gleamed between puffy lids, his nose leaked a red drizzle, his light hair was stained from a cut scalp and full of dirt, his shirt was ripped to the waist and crimsoned at the shoulder where Snake’s teeth had sunk. But neither saw anything except the menace in the other’s eyes.
The same thought came to both—probably born in the vindictive brain of Snake and involuntarily transmitted by his look: the thought of the gun leaning against the pack. True, it was “newfangled,” and Douglas knew it was locked against discharge; but in a fight a gun is not only a gun but a steel bar and a club. It was behind its owner, and a swift dash past him might make Snake its master. He attempted the dash.
Without the slightest preliminary movement he was speeding past Douglas. But the latter was not asleep. Pivoting on a heel, he swung a round-arm blow flush under the passing jaw.
The shock was terrific. Between the impetus of Snake’s plunge and the body-drive of the punch, the impact was more than doubled. The slugging armdropped, numb to the shoulder. Snake also dropped—numb all over.
His feet left the ground, and he straightened backward in the air. Flat on his back he struck, arms at his sides, legs stretched nerveless, head a little to the right, blank face turned to the brush. There he lay without a quiver of life.
Douglas stood peering down, slowly swinging his numbed arm at his side. Minutes passed. His breathing grew normal; his arm lost its wooden feeling. Somewhere a bird chirped noisily. Up from the unseen chasm of the Traps idled a new breeze, bearing the music of the far-off hammers. The warm sun beat down on the two men. Still Snake Sanders lay motionless.
The swollen-eyed man above him trod tentatively on a grimy hand. It gave no answering twitch. He stooped, studied the face, put a thumb on the left lid, pushed it up, and peered at the eyeball. Then he stood up, unconsciously rubbing his thumb against his shirt.
“Well, Mister Snake Sanders,” he said grimly, “if I were you and you were I, you’d drag me over to the edge and pitch me off to smash on the rocks, most likely. That’s what I ought to do to you. But I don’t happen to be built along those lines. Just what can a white man do with a reptile like you under such circumstances?”
The problem remained unanswered, though he ran a hand repeatedly through his thick hair and frowned down at the body.
“If I could only have hit you harder, maybe you’d die of a broken neck,” he mused. “I’ve known such things to happen. But I did the best I could, and you’ll live just the same. The devil takes care of his own, anyway.”
Slowly he turned and walked to his pack. Deliberately he got into the straps, wincing as the injured shoulder came under pressure.
“Must wash that place well when I reach the creek,” he muttered, “or I’ll get blood-poisoning. Guess a complete bath wouldn’t be inappropriate.”
He settled the pack, gripped his gun, stepped to the edge of the brush, and picked up his hat. Then he looked again at the silent Snake.
“On the whole, I think I have a good deal the best of it,” he declared. “Your little copperhead trick did me no harm, and I know a lot more now than if you hadn’t tried it. Yes, a whole lot. As for damages to our respective complexions and temperaments, I’m no worse off than you; and in the matter of general condition you’re certainly much worse than I. So we’ll call it quits—for the present.”
He plodded away. But after a few steps he looked back with a hard smile.
“Besides,” he concluded, “I was forgetting. Our young friend Steve has some business to settle with you. His account is three years old—maybe more—and mine has only just begun. So you’re Steve’s meat, Snake. Steve’s meat.”