Page:Weird Tales v01n01 (1923-03).djvu/76

Rh. He knew one experience that nothing on earth could send him through again. All that, and more, was in his tone, as he spoke.

At his words there came a restless stirring around the fire. Those men of the engineering gang had seen something of his experience. They knew what he was thinking. The abrupt ending of their argument showed that they agreed with Coulter.

He saw, and understood; and, seeing, smiled bitterly. They knew only a part of it.

To every man there is his one fear. The bravest man that ever trod the earth had his one especial dread. To some, it is fire; to others, cold steel; others still, the clash of physical contact. But, probe deep enough beneath the skin of any man alive, and you find it.

Snakes were Coulter's fear.

He could not explain it. He did not know why he, a man city-bred and born, had this obsession. It had been with him since he could remember. As a child, once he had gone into a convulsion of fear over some pictures of snakes in a book.

The old women of the family nodded their heads wisely, and muttered things about a fright to his mother before his birth. Coulter did not know. All that he was certain about was that the thought, even, of the writhing, slippery, squirming bodies, made his whole being shudder with revulsion, made tingles of absolute horror go up and down his back.

Yes, the gang agreed with him. Yet they had seen only a part of what he had gone through. They had seen and appreciated only his physical suffering—and that was the least part.

Coulter's nerves were in ragged shreds. He started and jumped at the slightest sound. His experience had intensified a thousandfold his nervous horror of reptiles.

The woods, the swamp, were full of them. He ran upon them constantly. All the time he was longing for his hour of liberation, when he could return to the city and to freedom.

The unexpected flutter of a thrush, as he walked through the woods, would send his heart into his throat and his pulse to pounding in fear. Night after night he woke, chained hand and foot with dread that a snake had crawled up, in the dark, beside him. All the stories he had ever read of their crawling up into camps and getting into the bedding, came to him, lingered with him, tortured him. He was no more asleep before he would awake, bathed in a cold sweat, afraid to move, afraid to lie still.

All that, subconsciously, was in his words, in his manner, in his whole expression as he said:

"I don't know about that."

HERE came the silence of conviction. Even Red Flannel Mike, most zealous exponent of man's lack of knowledge of himself, was silenced.

"Somebody said something about the kid." Baldy, the eighteen year old, seized his advantage. "I'll bet that even she—"

Baldy stopped abruptly. His whole frame stiffened. His eyes were riveted upon little Ruth. One by one, the rest of the gang turned to follow his gaze. Each followed his example.

Ruth's scream cut the air a moment before Baldy's gasp of horror:

"My God! The kid's got a moccasin on her!"

The child was close enough for the group to see clearly. Her head was bent back, straining away from the writhing horror. The sleek head slithered to and fro, darting, threatening, winding here and there about her. She seemed frozen with fear.

Baldy had started forward. He stopped.

"I—get me a gun!" He barked. "Get a gun! Quick!"

The reptile drew back its head. There came an interruption:

White to his lips, staggering upon his feet, Coulter came forward. His face was ghastly pale. His unwilling feet buckled under him, threatening, each moment, to give way and pitch him forward upon his face.

Slowly he edged closer. The slender head poised, watchful. Coulter's