at the same time.

Jack Stillwell solved the problem. He was chewing tobacco.

"Sh! I'll fix him," he whispered.

He slightly raised--at the movement the snake coiled, rattle sticking
up in the center, head poised, tongue licking wickedly. And aiming his
best, Jack spat.

The stream spurted truly. It drenched the beady-eyed, flat-iron head,
flooded the swaying neck and spattered the thick scaly coils. With a
writhe and a hiss the blinded snake threshed to one side and burrowed
for shelter. Jack chuckled and shook. He had cleared the decks of one
enemy.

Nearly at the same time the Indian look-out rode away, following the
retiring band. That was a great relief. Between the snake and the
Indian scout Trudeau and Stillwell had experienced, as the record says,
the most terrible half-hour of their lives.

The collapse of the danger left them both weak. They now had found out
that it was not yet safe to travel by day; so they stayed here in the
wallow, with the buffalo carcass for company, till evening. In this
next night's journey poor Trudeau broke. The strain was proving too
much. They had eaten nothing since leaving the island, they had
crawled for miles, had traveled by night, through the midst of the
Indians, for fifty miles; had escaped again and again only by the
sheerest good fortune. He broke, and young Jack had all that he could
do, for a time, to keep him from seeing imaginary forms and running
amuck over the plain, or else killing himself.

Toward morning he succeeded in quieting him, making him drink heartily
from a stream and swallow some of the horse-beef. They pushed on. It
was a foggy day, and they did not stop. Jack now had to furnish the
brains and the strength, and do the bracing. But he was equal to it;
he selected the trail and helped his staggering partner. Neither was
braver than the other, but one had more reserve power.

At noon they were within twenty miles of Fort Wallace. That fourth
evening after dusk they were challenged by the post sentry, and
tottered on in with their message from the island in the Arikaree, one
hundred miles to the northward.

Jack Stillwell went with the relief column from the fort. Scout
Trudeau could not; he was exhausted. He never did recover, and the
next spring he died; he had given his life to save the lives of others.
Scout Stillwell followed many another danger trail, until the Indian
wars upon his plains were over; then he became a