he fence.

He was a man of gigantic stature, dressed in coarse canvas breeches, and
with a handkerchief of gaudy dye twisted about his head. His bold
features wore the usual Indian expression of saturnine imperturbability,
and he half sat, half reclined upon the log as motionless as a piece of
carven bronze, staring at Landless with large, inscrutable eyes.

Landless, staring in return, saw something else. The rank growth of
weeds in which the log was sunk moved ever so slightly. There was a
flash as of a swiftly drawn rapier, and something long and mottled hung
for an instant upon the shoulder of the Indian, and then dropped into
its lair again.

With a sudden lithe twist of his body, the savage flung himself upon it,
and holding it down with one hand, with the other beat the life out with
a heavy stick. The creature was killed by the first stroke, but he
continued to rain vindictive blows upon it until it was mashed to a
pulp. Then, with a serenely impassive mien, he resumed his seat upon the
log.

Landless sprang across the stream, and went up to him.

"You are bitten! Is there aught I can do?"

The Indian shook his head. With one hand he pulled the shoulder forward,
trying, as Landless saw, to meet the wound with his lips; but finding
that it could not be done, he desisted and sat silent, and to all
appearance, unconcerned.

Landless cried out impatiently, "It will kill you, man! Do you know no
remedy?"

The Indian grunted. "Snake root grow deep in the forest, a long way off.
Besides, an Iroquois does not die for a little thing like a pale face
or a dog of an Algonquin."

"Why did you try to reach the sting with your mouth?"

"To suck out the evil."

"Is that a cure?"

The Indian nodded. Landless knelt down and examined the shoulder. "Now,"
he said, "tell me if I set about it in the right way," and applied his
lips to the swollen, blue-black spot.

The Indian gave a grunt of surprise, and his white teeth flashed in a
smile; then he sat silent under the ministrations of the white man who
sucked at the wound, spitting the venom upon the ground, until the dark
skin was drawn and wrinkled like the hand of a washerwoman.

"Good!" then said the Indian, and pointed to the stream. Landless went
to it, rinsed his mouth, and brought back water in his cap with which he
laved the shoulder of his new acquaintance, ending by binding it up with
the handkerchief from the man's head.

A guttural sound from the In