erfect pair of stingers. The wise guy took one look at them and
fled, and the snake man would have carried it off all right, only he was
so busy calling a few choice names after him that he placed the snake
back in the cage instead of throwing it in, and the rattler struck him
before he could draw his hand out. He had a clown make-up on, so I
couldn't tell whether he was pale or not when he came to me a few
minutes later and held out his hand, but there was a queer expression on
his face and I knew that my apprehensions had not been groundless.

"There were just two little red dots, no bigger than pin heads, on the
back of his hand.

"'You got it, didn't you?' says I.

"'Good and plenty,' says he. 'My arm hurts me already.'

"We got busy right away and took him up to the hospital where Bonavita
is now. Say, he was a very thin man and you can see that I'm no
lightweight; but by midnight the right side of his body and his right
arm and leg were swollen to my size, and in the morning all of the
swollen part was as black as a coal. He was suffering terribly, and I
tried to get hold of the Arab snake doctor but couldn't locate him, so I
wired to Rochester for Rattlesnake Pete. He came down and a mighty
interesting man he is, but he couldn't do anything which 'Doc' up at the
hospital hadn't done, and it was five days before my man was out of
danger. He was not a drinking man--I finished having drunkards around my
show a good many years ago--and the whiskey took right hold of him and
pulled him through. 'Doc' kept squirting some red stuff into his arm,
but it was the 'red-eye' which saved him--and that reminds me."

[Illustration: _"The wise guy."_]

He beckoned to the waiter and each one ordered his favorite antidote for
a possible snake bite.

"Did he return to the show?" asked the Stranger, after he had rendered
himself immune.

[Illustration: _Noah listens to the tale of a Johnstown flood
survivor._]

"He sure did; you couldn't keep him away, but he has never been fond of
snakes since. It is the same man whom you saw putting the group of
elephants through their paces to-night."

It was growing late, and the Proprietor announced that he was going to
show his wife a good husband and said good-night, but the Stranger
waited for the story which he saw was trembling upon his companion's
lips, and induced the sleepy waiter to bring a farewell dose of
snake-bite antidote. The man was unknown to him by name, but his
p