第23章

AFTER breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead man and guess out how he come to be killed, but Jim didn't want to.He said it would fetch bad luck;and besides, he said, he might come and ha'nt us; he said a man that warn't buried was more likely to go aha'nting around than one that was planted and comfortable.That sounded pretty reasonable, so I didn't say no more;but I couldn't keep from studying over it and wishing I knowed who shot the man, and what they done it for.

We rummaged the clothes we'd got, and found eight dollars in silver sewed up in the lining of an old blanket overcoat.Jim said he reckoned the people in that house stole the coat, because if they'd a knowed the money was there they wouldn't a left it.I said I reckoned they killed him, too; but Jim didn't want to talk about that.I says:

"Now you think it's bad luck; but what did you say when I fetched in the snake-skin that I found on the top of the ridge day before yesterday?

You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snake-skin with my hands.Well, here's your bad luck! We've raked in all this truck and eight dollars besides.I wish we could have some bad luck like this every day, Jim.""Never you mind, honey, never you mind.Don't you git too peart.It's a-comin'.Mind I tell you, it's a-comin'."It did come, too.It was a Tuesday that we had that talk.Well, after dinner Friday we was laying around in the grass at the upper end of the ridge, and got out of tobacco.I went to the cavern to get some, and found a rattlesnake in there.I killed him, and curled him up on the foot of Jim's blanket, ever so natural, thinking there'd be some fun when Jim found him there.Well, by night I forgot all about the snake, and when Jim flung himself down on the blanket while I struck a light the snake's mate was there, and bit him.

He jumped up yelling, and the first thing the light showed was the varmint curled up and ready for another spring.I laid him out in a second with a stick, and Jim grabbed pap's whisky-jug and begun to pour it down.

He was barefooted, and the snake bit him right on the heel.That all comes of my being such a fool as to not remember that wherever you leave a dead snake its mate always comes there and curls around it.Jim told me to chop off the snake's head and throw it away, and then skin the body and roast a piece of it.I done it, and he eat it and said it would help cure him.He made me take off the rattles and tie them around his wrist, too.He said that that would help.Then I slid out quiet and throwed the snakes clear away amongst the bushes; for I warn't going to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it.

Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his head and pitched around and yelled; but every time he come to himself he went to sucking at the jug again.His foot swelled up pretty big, and so did his leg; but by and by the drunk begun to come, and so I judged he was all right; but I'd druther been bit with a snake than pap's whisky.

Jim was laid up for four days and nights.Then the swelling was all gone and he was around again.I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take a-holt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what had come of it.