The bullet struck the flat rock, bounded up to the side wall of the cavern and then hit him in the leg.
"Missed, by thunder!"
He jumped past the spot and moved up the cavern a distance of several yards.
A rattle and a whirr followed, as the great rattlesnake made a vicious strike in the dark. An intense hiss sounded out when the reptile realized that the object of his anger had been missed.
Listening with strained ears, the boomer heard the deadly thing sliding slowly from rock to rock, coming closer at every movement.
To flee was impossible, so with bated breath he stood his ground.
CHAPTER IV.
OUT OF THE CAVERN.
Slowly but surely the great rattlesnake came closer to where p.a.w.nee Brown stood motionless in the darkness of the cavern.
The reptile had been enraged by the shot the great scout fired, and now meant to strike, and that fatally.
Listening with ears strained to their utmost, the boomer heard the form of the snake slide from rock to rock of the uneven flooring.
The rattler was all of ten feet long and as thick around as a good-sized fence rail.
One square strike from those poisonous fangs and p.a.w.nee Brown"s hours would be numbered.
Yet the scout did not intend to give up his life just now. He still held his pistol, four chambers of which were loaded.
"If only I had a light," he thought.
Retreat was out of the question. A single sound and the rattlesnake would have been upon him like a flash.
It was only the darkness and the utter silence that made the reptile cautious.
Suddenly the scout heard a sc.r.a.ping on the rocks less than three feet in front of him.
The time for action had come; another moment and the rattler would be wound around his legs.
Crack! crack! Two reports rang out in quick succession and by the flash of the first shot p.a.w.nee Brown located those glittering eyes.
The second shot went true to its mark, and the rattler dropped back with a hole through its ugly head.
The long, whip like body slashed hither and thither, and the scout had to do some lively sprinting to keep from getting a tangle and a squeeze.
As he hopped about he struck a match, picked up the lantern, shook the little oil remaining into the wick and lit it. Another shot finished the snake and the body curled up into a snarl and a quiver, to bother him no more.
It was then that p.a.w.nee Brown paused, drew a deep breath and wiped the cold perspiration from his brow.
"By gosh! I"ve killed fifty rattlers in my time, but never one in this fashion," he murmured. "Wonder if there are any more around?"
He knew that these snakes often travel in pairs, and as he went on his way he kept his eyes wide open for another attack.
But none came, and now something else claimed his attention.
The cavern was coming to an end. The side walls closed in to less than three feet, and the flooring sloped up so that he had to crouch down and finally go forward on his hands and knees.
The lantern now went out for good, every drop of oil being exhausted.
At this juncture many a man would have halted and turned back to where he had come from, but such was not p.a.w.nee Brown"s intention.
"I"ll see the thing through," he muttered. "I"d like to know how far I am from the surface of the ground."
A dozen yards further and the cavern become so small that additional progress was impossible.
He placed his hand above him and encountered nothing but dirt, with here and there a small stone.
With care he began to dig away at the dirt with his knife. Less than a foot of the cavern ceiling had thus been dug away when the point of the knife brought down a small stream of water.
Feeling certain he was now close to the surface, he continued to work with renewed vigor.
"At last!"
The scout was right. The knife had found the outer air, and a dim, uncertain light struck down upon the hero of the plains.
It did not take long to enlarge the opening sufficiently to admit the pa.s.sage of p.a.w.nee Brown"s body.
He leaped out among a number of bushes and stretched himself.
Having brushed the dirt from his wet clothing, he "located himself," as he put it, and started up a hill to the entrance to the Devil"s Chimney.
He was on the side opposite to that from which he had descended, and, in order to get over, had to make a wide detour through some brush and small timber.
This accomplished, he hurried to where he had left Bonnie Bird tethered.
As the reader knows, the beautiful mare was gone, and had been for some time.
"I suppose that young Arbuckle took her," he mused. "But, if so, why doesn"t he come back here with her?"
There being no help for it, the scout set off for the camp of the boomers on foot.
He was just entering the temporary settlement when he came face to face with Jack Rasco, another of the boomers.
"p.a.w.nee!" shouted the boomer, "You air jess the man I want ter see. Hev ye sot eyes on airy o" the Arbuckles?"
"I"m looking for d.i.c.k Arbuckle now," answered the scout. "Isn"t he in the camp? I thought he came here with my mare?"