d heart and lungs. It was then
that he let us get to work,--almost too late,--or rather, that he ceased
his protest. His whole leg swelled and turned black, clear up, he got
feverish and nauseated, and for hours he kept swooning off, while we
worked over him, almost giving up hope, and one of our men had gone
post-haste for an old guide who made the serum,--anti-venom serum."

"Did he finally pull through?"

"With the loss of a leg. If he hadn't had that off pronto, gangrene would
likely have set in and he'd have gone."

"But this serum--where do you get it?"

"I don't know. We got it of a man who made it. First he injected into a
mule a tiny drop of the venom."

"How did he get the venom?"

"Killed a snake. You know the poison is in a tiny sac at the root of each
fang. Well, after he had given the mule the first dose and he had
recovered, he tried a larger one, then a still larger one, and so on,
every few weeks for a year or more, until the mule's blood serum had
developed enough anti-toxin to make him immune to rattlesnake bite."

"But then what?"

"He let some of the mule's blood, separated the serum, sterilized it, and
put it up in sealed tubes, which he kept in the cellar. This serum is
injected into the victim's blood with a hypodermic syringe, and if it is
used before he has collapsed, it will cure him every time. We really
ought to have brought some along, just in case of extreme emergency. I
have, however, a bottle of permanganate of potash crystals," and he
showed a little hard rubber tube two and a half inches long, one end of
which contained the crystals and the other a well sharpened lancet, as
the stuff has to be put right into the wound. This outfit, he explained,
had only cost a dollar, and was so tiny it could be carried right on the
person when in danger of being snake bitten. However, it has to be used
instantly, (within three or four minutes at the outside), "if it is to
neutralize the corroding acid of the poison and do any good."

That night a bon-fire built up into a log cabin with a tepee of pine
fringed poles atop sent the sparks flying, but was not uncomfortably hot
except on their faces. These they shaded with their hat brims.

"I wonder why there is so much difference in Indians," mused Ace. "When
Dad and I visited the Hopis, there, on our way to the Grand Canyon, we
were impressed by their high degree of civilization. Like all the
Pueblos, they raised good crops, had a regular go