CHAPTER II.

BILLIE HAS A CLOSE CALL.

"Oh! Billie's fallen down in that rattlesnake den!" gasped Adrian, even while he and Donald were jumping over the rocks as fast as their legs would carry them, and headed in the direction where just ten seconds before they had seen the fat chum waving his arms excitedly to attract their attention, only to suddenly slip and disappear from view.

In all their experiences with the clumsy Billie, the two boys probably never had such a sensation of absolute horror sweep over them as at that particular minute.

They must have pictured all sorts of terrible results springing from this weakness on the part of Billie to do just the very thing he should have avoided. For him to make a misstep, and fall into that hole in the rocks where he had just told them dozens of poisonous snakes were coiled, and wriggling about, was possibly the greatest calamity that could have happened to him. And it might be the last mistake poor clumsy Billie was ever apt to make in this world of woe.

Spurred on by fear, and almost dreading to peer into the pit, the two boys reached the edge in a very few seconds. Both of them shut their teeth hard as they proceeded to thrust their heads out in order to look downward.

What they saw gave them a new thrill.

Billie was there, but he had not fallen all the way to the bottom of the hole, it appeared. His old lucky streak seemed to still hold good, for he had succeeded, somehow or other,--and Billie could never explain in what way it came about,--in clutching hold of the rocks as he fell, so that he was clinging there, with his fat legs kicking wildly in space, and not more than five feet from the bottom of the rocky pit.

And just as he had so exultantly shouted when he wanted to attract his resting companions to view the strange sight, the floor of the den seemed to be almost carpeted with squirming reptiles, as though this might be a regular breeding place for rattlesnakes.

They were some of them monsters, while others seemed to be of the smaller species so generally found on the plains, and usually inhabiting the burrows of prairie dogs; but which are just as deadly as their diamond-back cousins.

The dropping down upon them of numerous small fragments of rock, caused by the scrambling of Billie when he tried to keep from falling, had aroused many of the half dormant reptiles, so that they were making quite a din with their rattles just then, and showing signs of sudden anger, as they coiled, and waited for the intruder to land among them.

Billie had been looking down at them, but appearing to know that his chums must have arrived above, he turned a white, appealing face up toward them. Such fear the others had never seen in all their lives; but chances were their own faces must have been just as white at that same instant.

"Help me, boys, for goodness sake!" gasped poor Billie, as he squirmed there, unable to find the slightest perch for his dangling feet, so that all of his great weight came upon his arms alone, and they must have been sorely tried when he first clutched hold of the rough face of the rock to check his descent.

"Hold on like everything, Billie!" called Donald, excitedly.

"Ain't I doing that same; but please get busy and start something to save me, boys!" groaned the one in peril. "It's just awful hanging here, and listening to them use their old rattleboxes that way."

"How long can you hold out?" demanded Donald, "for if I could run over to our ponies and snatch up a rope, I'd have you out of that in a jiffy."

"Go!" pleaded Billie. "Anything, so that you're on the jump! I'll do the best I know how to keep hanging here; but it's pretty tough on a fellow!"

Donald had already disappeared, and was flying like the wind toward the spot where their mounts were fastened, leaping over rocks that stood in the way as if they were next door to nothing.

Adrian, left with the lad who was in such desperate straits, busied himself in looking around, in the vague hope of discovering some means for rendering "first aid to the injured." He remembered seeing certain queer vines growing from fissures in the rocks in some places, and if one of these only happened to be within reaching distance it might prove valuable now.

Luck seemed to be with him, for what should he sight but an unusually thick specimen of this same vine not ten feet away.

Snatching out his sharp-edged hunting knife, which he always kept in prime condition, Adrian sprang over to where he had discovered this treasure.

"Oh! don't leave me alone, Adrian!" shrieked the fat boy, piteously; for how was he to know what had caused the other to vanish from his agonized view?

But Adrian was already cutting away fiercely; and although the vine proved very tough, he had it hacked through in next to no time, such was the vigor he put into his work.

Then back he sprang, trailing the vine with him; and when he again thrust his eager face over the edge of the pit, doubtless that was the most delightful vision poor alarmed Billie had ever seen in all his life.

"Oh! ain't I glad you didn't leave me, Adrian!" he cried, almost whimpering in his tremendous excitement.

"How are you holding out, Billie?" called the other.

"Only middling! It's getting worse and worse every second," replied the one who was hanging on so desperately below, some ten feet or more. "You see, I haven't got much of a hold, and I don't dare try and change my grip because if I once started going there'd be no stopping me. Is Donald coming back yet, Ad, tell me please?"

"I don't think he's quite got to the horses yet, Billie!"

"Oh! my goodness! what will I do?" groaned the wretched lad, as he once more felt his gaze drawn down to the bottom of the pit by some horrible fascination which he could not resist.

"Keep up your courage, old fellow," said Adrian, feeling that at any cost he must prevent the other from giving way to despair, for that would surely cause his muscles to relax, and should this occur the end was certain. "See, I've got a vine here, and I'm lowering the big end to you as fast as I can. Perhaps now you might get a grip on that, if you felt your hands slipping away from the rock. It's got a rough surface, and would hold better!"

"Thank you, Adrian, that sounds good to me; but hurry it along, please, for I'm afraid I'm slipping off right now!"

So the one above did hasten the descent of the vine; and in another moment he was gratified to realize that Billie had transferred his grip to that. The strain was tremendous, for Billie weighed almost as much as both his chums put together; but Adrian had prepared for this by bracing his feet against a rock, so there was small danger of his being pulled over the edge.

He could not begin to raise Billie alone and unaided, but he expected to hold fast until the coming of Donald.

Then again, Billie, having a new kind of grip now, was able to strain and draw until he had elevated himself a few feet, so that he could get a rest with his toes upon the very small ledge to which he had hitherto been clinging with his hands.

"It's all right now, Adrian!" he sang out with sudden cheerfulness that contrasted queerly with the horror that had been in his voice only a minute previously; "I'm fixed different than before, and I reckon I can hold out till Donald comes up. Oh! you can keep on shakin' your old rattleboxes down there; but this ain't the time you get Broncho Billie. But I tell you now, that was the closest shave I ever had happen to me, sure it was."

Donald soon came panting along, full of dire forebodings, because it had taken him considerably longer to go and return than he had expected; and there was no telling what might not have happened to poor, tired Billie in the meantime. But as he had heard no shouts from Adrian, he kept hoping for the best.

When he saw how cleverly his chum had made use of the trailing vine that had seemed to grow just where it could be utilized, as though Billie's attendant good angel was as always on the job, Donald gave a faint cheer.

"Bully for you, Ad!" he cried, as he flung himself down by the edge of the rattlesnake pit, to lower the loop of his lariat; "trust you to think up some smart trick, while dummies like me can only remember that they own a rope. Hi! Billie, can you kick your legs into that loop, and let me draw it up under your arms?"

"Sure I can, Donald; just try me," came from below; and then ensued a vigorous shifting of the dangling lower extremities of the imperiled boy, until finally the expert user of the rope above managed to lasso them both; after which it was a simple thing to draw the loop to where he wanted.

Then the two above proceeded to pull Billie up. He scrambled over the edge with a red face, and a broad grin on the same that was just the opposite to that look of terror they had so lately seen there. But all the same they were delighted to get him back unharmed; and both boys squeezed his hand in a way that told Billie how tremendously they had been aroused by his sudden peril.

"That was a silly slip of mine, sure it was," he admitted immediately; for Billie was always ready to own up to making blunders, which was one reason they found it so hard to condemn him; "and let's get away from this place as quick as we can, boys. Huh! no Gila Monster for me after this, I reckon. I've had as close a call to being stung as I ever want to get. Gimme a chance to rest up a bit, and then I'll be ready to hike out of this blessed region, where there's more snakes to the square foot than anywhere on earth, seems like."

Less than half an hour later the Broncho Rider Boys were returning to the copper mine by the same tortuous route which they had taken to reach the lofty place where the view had been worth all the trouble the journey had cost them.

Billie was unusually quiet on the return trip. Truth to tell he was feeling as tired as though he had done the greatest day's work of his life; for the strain on body and mind, while he hung there above those hissing and rattling snakes, had been simply terrific. He knew that he would feel it for several days; but his nature was such that past troubles sat very lightly on his mind; and he would soon be joking about his strange experience.

It was pretty certain however, that Billie had had his lesson; and after that should he have occasion to come within a certain distance of any sort of viper the fat boy was pretty apt to make sure of his footing; one experience of that kind ought to be quite enough.