to follow him, and gave it up. When they were
almost to the spring she again unwittingly jarred Holman Sommers
out of his subject.

"Did all those words you used mean that Pat will foam at the mouth like
mad dogs you read about?" she asked abruptly.

Holman Sommers, tramping along beside the pinto, looked at her queerly.
"If Pat does not, I strongly suspect that I shall," he told her
weightily, but with a twinkle in his eyes. "I have been endeavoring, Miss
Stevenson, to wean your thoughts away from so unhappy a subject. Why
permit yourself to be worried? The thing will happen, or it will not
happen. If it does happen, you will be powerless to prevent. If it does
not, you will have been anxious over a chimera of the imagination."

"Chimera of the imagination is a good line," laughed Helen May
flippantly. "All the same, if Pat is going to gallop all over the
scenery, foaming at the mouth and throwing fits at the sight of water--"

"As a matter of fact," Holman Sommers was beginning again in his most
instructive tone, when a whoop from the spring interrupted him.

Vic had hobbled obligingly down there to get cool water for the plump
lady who was Holman Sommers' sister, and he had nearly stepped on a
sleepy rattler stretched out in the sun. Vic was making a collection of
rattles. He had one set, so far, of five rattles and a "button." He
wanted to get these which were buzzing stridently enough for three
snakes, it seemed to Vic. He was hopping around on his good foot and
throwing rocks; and the snake, having retreated to a small heap of loose
cobblestones, was thrusting his head out in vicious little striking
gestures, and keeping the scaly length of him bidden.

"Wait a minute, I'll get him, Vic," called Helen May, suddenly anxious to
show off her newly acquired skill with firearms. Starr had told her that
lots of people killed rattlesnakes by shooting their heads off. She
wanted to try it, anyway, and show Vic a thing or two. So she rode up as
close as she dared, though the pinto shied away from the ominous sound;
pulled her pearl-handled six-shooter from its holster, aimed, and fired
at the snake's head.

You have heard, no doubt, of "fool's luck." Helen May actually tore the
whole top off that rattlesnake's head (though I may as well say right
here that she never succeeded in shooting another snake) and rode
nonchalantly on to the cabin as though she had done nothing at all
unusual, but smiling to herself at Vic