Chapter XX: End of the Struggle

Tom knew that he was facing a wildcat. He knew that he was not in danger so long as the animal was not at bay. It is no longer the fashion for wildcats to chase young heroes as they used to do in the _Dan Dreadnaught_ and _Slickshot Sam_ Series. But, just the same, an encounter with a wildcat at bay is no pink tea. Personally, I prefer golf. If that wildcat had been able to listen to reason all might have been well, but he seemed to have an hallucination that Tom was advancing against him. And there was not much room behind the beast for a masterly retreat.

So he drew back, mouth open, eyes blazing, and cruel paw uplifted. His demeanor was exactly like that of a cat, lifted out of the domestic sphere and made magnificent. Tom had no intention of advancing, though he thought it quite likely that, if crowded, the creature would spring to the ground or to another branch. However, he took no chances. Discretion is the better part of valor, and he was in a hurry. He backed away along the limb and, as he did so, the creature, encouraged, advanced a trifle with menacing paw. He might spring, thought Tom.

In the circumstances a precipitous exit from the scene seemed wisest and he decided to give unmistakable appearance of withdrawal by a dexterous move to the limb below him. Getting a foothold on this, he caught hold of a small branch which broke, and he went tumbling to the ground.

He fell upon some thick brush and for a few moments saw all the stars known to astronomy. Then he picked himself up, staggered out of the natural cushion which had saved his precious young life, and found that he could hardly walk.

“No harm done,” was the laconic way in which he described the incident to me. But for all that he had to limp to the Gulch, occasionally pausing on a rock or fallen tree to ease the pain of walking.

It was, of course, long after dark when he reached the Gulch. Going straight to the cabin, he found it dark and empty. Then he went to Conner’s well and called down. I should have thought that his very proximity to that black hole in the darkness would have made him cautious and fearful. But he approached to the very edge, pulled aside some of the obstructing growth and called down.

There was no answer. He called again, and receiving no response began investigating the spot, trying to determine if Brent had succeeded in getting out. He might have gone somewhere for a little while. He examined the brush as well as he could in the dark. It was broken and lately disordered, he could see; but that he thought had been caused by himself and by Brent in descending.

Now he began to be puzzled, and his puzzlement grew to alarm. There was nothing to do but descend himself, and it would be useless, or at least unwise, to do that without a light. He had no flashlight, so he did the thing which he could do quickest. I dare say it was a good idea. In the cabin was an old cage trap, relic of Buck Sanderson’s hunting days. This Tom filled with straw out of the old mattress that was in the cabin. Some dry twigs also, and a couple of chunks of solid wood he took with him. All this he tied to an end of the rope which he had brought and lowered into the well, having first securely fastened the other end of rope to the big elm which, you will remember, grew not far from the well; the elm whose wandering roots penetrated the hole and hung loose within it.

Then, by a dexterous trick of throwing the rope into a loop with his foot and thus getting a foothold from point to point as he went down, he lowered himself hand over hand down the black shaft. Tentacles of root brushed in his face as he did so. Here and there he got a foothold in the rough masonry and so, by hook or crook, reached the bottom. It must have been difficult and painful, for his ankle was very sore.

He alighted on something soft--an inert form. Lighting a match, and from this a rolled strip of paper, he beheld a dreadful sight. There lay his comrade, Brent Gaylong, his face white and mud bespattered. Around his right leg lay loosely the deadly snake, its sinuous body relaxed. Near to Brent’s right foot the mottled head dangled loosely above a tiny, muddy hollow. The creature was quite dead. Tom examined its chafed and torn neck but saw that this injury would not account for its death.

When Brent Gaylong, in a last physical expression of his despair, had impetuously pushed his foot down upon the sinking rock with all the strength of desperation, he had pushed the deadly head of the pinioned reptile under the oozy water and, all unknowing, held it there between rock and iron sole plate until it had drowned.

There was not a scar on the victor in this terrible encounter. And he lay there prone in the muddy water which had proved his salvation, never knowing what he had done.