"Oh, that snake!"

Leaping across the board still pinning the reptile to the floor--dead or alive she did not know--Tabitha clutched the hysterical woman by the shoulder and shook her, demanding, "Tell me this minute if you are hurt!"

But Aunt Maria continued her incoherent cries, still rocking back and forth in her corner, too dazed to make any further explanations. Tabitha surveyed the scene in perplexity. What should she do? The Carsons were away from home and no one else near enough to summon to her aid. If the snake had bitten her aunt, something must be done at once. All the remedies for poisonous bites that she had ever heard of seemed to have slipped from her memory. It might be too late by the time a doctor could be called. Precious seconds were rapidly pa.s.sing. Supposing the snake were not dead yet. She glanced at the board in the middle of the floor and fancied it moved. In desperation she seized the teakettle from the stove and let its scalding contents fly over the spot where the snake might be.

At that instant her eyes fell upon the flask her father carried on his trips among the mountains, and she remembered in a flash that whiskey is a good antidote for rattlesnake bites. This might not be a rattlesnake and it might not even be a poisonous one, but she would take no chances.

s.n.a.t.c.hing off the cap, she poured a stream of the fiery liquid into the woman's open mouth, nearly strangling her. Choking and spluttering, Aunt Maria tried to scream, but could only gasp for breath, and to Tabitha's frightened eyes her face took on a dying look. A pail of water stood on the stand under the faucet, and catching up this, the child deluged the convulsed form in the corner.

There was a sharp in-drawing of breath, a sound of mingled surprise and wrath, and the irate aunt towered above the astonished girl, her eyes blazing as Tabitha had never seen them before.

"Tabitha Catt!" she managed to articulate, "of all outrageous things I ever heard tell of in my life! What do you think you are doing? Trying to murder me? Haven't I had enough scares this morning without your burning the skin all off my mouth and throat and choking me half to death and then trying to drown me? What do you mean by it, I say?"

"Oh, Aunt Maria, are you bit?"

"Bit, bit, bit, did you say? Yes, bit by that fire you poured into me.

What did you think bit me?" She had forgotten all about the snake! And Tabitha had difficulty in explaining the situation to her.

But that decided matters for Aunt Maria. She had hated the desert ever since she had come there nearly four years ago, and this was the last straw. What did she care if the snake did prove to be a harmless thing?

If she couldn't live in a house without being in danger of a snake invasion at any time, she simply would not live there at all. Her temper was thoroughly aroused, and when Mr. Catt arrived home that night she made known her decision in no gentle terms to him.

"I have lived in this forsaken hole just as long as I am going to, Max Catt! I've routed out centipedes and scorpions and poison bugs of all kinds until I am tired of it. Tabitha caught a baby tarantula under her bed the other morning, and we found something in the wood-pile last week that the folks at the hotel called a Gila monster. Why, one can't stir around here in the spring and summer without running the risk of getting killed by some of your varmints, and I've had enough of it. I am going back to civilization."

"Now, Maria, be sensible. That snake couldn't have got into the house if the screen had been shut the way it should have been."

"I suppose the spiders and centipedes come in through the open screen, too, don't they, and roost in the dishpan hanging on the wall! That is where I found one not long ago, and I caught another stowed away in my clothes when I went to dress yesterday. I don't dare go to sleep nights any more for fear they will bite me. Life is a perfect nightmare. It is bad enough to have to stay here nine-tenths of the time with n.o.body in the house but Tabitha, without being in constant fear of one's life all the time."

"How many people do you ever hear of being killed here on the desert by centipedes or scorpions or tarantulas, or even snakes? I tell you they aren't half as bad as they are made out to be."

"Well, I ain't going to risk my life to find out how poisonous they are, Maximilian, and you needn't think it."

"But Maria, what will become of Tabitha? She can't stay here alone and keep house," he argued.

"There ain't any need of her staying here alone. She can go to boarding school in Los Angeles with Carrie Carson. If you weren't so thoroughly selfish you would have sent her there long ago with your own money; but even now when that hermit she saved from being burned up has given her enough money to put her clear through college, you won't let her touch a penny of it."

"Maria Catt, how am I to know that money was honestly his? I believe he stole it, and I don't care to get mixed up in any robbery case. There is something underhanded about the deal or he would have come to me with the money. I may be selfish but I am not dishonest," he ended, hotly.

"Dr. Vane is satisfied, and he is a shrewd enough man to know what is what. That hermit wasn't a robber and you know that without any proof.

He has mining claims here that prove where he got his money."

"Then why didn't he turn it over to me, instead of to the doctor? He has virtually made Dr. Vane trustee of those funds."

"That only shows he has some sense," his sister interrupted with energy.

"You don't know how to look after a child properly. But you know well enough why he didn't come to you. How could he, with you off chasing up syndicates and other fools to buy up your claims--"

"Those claims are worth money, Maria Catt, and some day I will prove it to you. I wouldn't think of parting with one of them if I had the money to work them the way they ought to be worked. The 'Tom Cat' is particularly promising."

"That may be, but it is a sin and shame to pay more attention to those old mines than you do to your children. Here is Tom working his way through college when it is your duty to put him through--"

"I told Tom long ago that if his wanted a college education he would have to earn it. I can't see that University courses make any better men of the boys that get them than experience does of the boys that are not as well educated. In fact, I think--and always did--that experience is the best teacher."

"You've got a grouch against the world because you think it hasn't treated you right, and you're spitting your spite out on your children.

Here is Tabitha, now,--as bright a child as I ever laid eyes on--"

"And as ugly a one."

"Whose fault is that, Maximilian Catt? If she had been brought up differently she would compare favorably with any child in the country.

She _does_ compare favorably in spite of her bringing up. The teacher says she never had such a bright scholar in all her school experience.

She learns surprisingly quick."

"I don't see anything surprising about that. The Catts are not ignoramuses, none of them."

"I know that all right. I'm a Catt myself, and while I never set myself up to be overly quick-witted, I think I have my share of brains, and might have amounted to something if I had some more education."

"Shucks! What are you always harping on that string for? Education isn't everything in the world. Tabitha can get all the learning a woman needs right here in this town."

"Because the girl hankers for knowledge, you are just determined to make her as miserable as you can, and if she was half as much Catt as you are, she would grow up just as spiteful and selfish; but thank goodness, she has some of her mother's traits. If she was a little mite and needed my care, I would stay, even if I did get killed for my trouble; but she is big enough now so I can leave without any qualms of conscience, and I am going to leave. You can do just whatever you like with her, but I will not stay here for love or money. Find a housekeeper if you can, but whether or not you do, I am going back East just as soon as I can get my things packed. I am absolutely unnerved over that snake. I can't turn around without seeing the thing coiled ready to spring, and that poor cat chasing around like a thing crazy; and when I shut my eyes there are whole strings of 'em dancing up and down like all possessed until I am half wild. That cat never came back and I believe that is a warning. I am going to follow its example."

No arguments could prevail to change her mind, and she immediately began packing for her departure.

Poor Mr. Catt, what was he to do? The possibility of Aunt Maria's leaving them had never occurred to him, in spite of her oft repeated threats; and now that she had suddenly determined to return to her own home he was facing anything but an agreeable situation.

It was out of the question for Tabitha to take charge of the housekeeping and stay there alone much of the time as she would have to do when he was away. It was equally out of the question to secure a reliable housekeeper in this little desert town. But the idea of accepting the hermit's money and sending her away to school was very repugnant to him and he was at a loss to know what to do.

Aunt Maria's fright had given her unusual courage and she had told him some unpleasant truths, things she would never have dared say under ordinary circ.u.mstances; but after his surprise at her daring had died down he faced her accusations, fought them out one by one, recognized the truth of them and capitulated. Tabitha could go away to boarding school. Words are inadequate to express Tabitha's joy when told this delightful news; she was literally entranced with the prospect.

The night that Aunt Maria had departed for her eastern home, Tabitha sat disconsolately on the back steps, alternately patting General Grant's head resting on her knee, and trying to study her grammar lesson, but the nouns and verbs would become hopelessly mixed, and the adjectives and adverbs fought scandalously with each other. Mr. Catt, tilted back in his chair beside the window, tried to read the city paper, but found his glance wandering constantly to the lonely figure on the steps.

"I am a beast," he said to himself, as the brown hand swept a tear off the page she was supposed to be studying. "This is no place for a child like that. She has the making of a fine woman in her, and I haven't done right by her. She _is_ bright, and Maria is right. Tabitha!"

She started violently. "Yes, sir."

"Come here."

Closing her book but keeping it clasped in her hands she went inside the house and stood waiting to know his pleasure, surprise--almost apprehension at this unexpected summons--showing plainly in her face.

"You were reciting some gabble on the steps a little bit ago. Say it again."

"Gabble?" said the puzzled girl questioningly.

"Yes, something about Ghent."

"Oh, that wasn't gabble! That is a masterpiece, teacher says. Why, Robert Browning wrote that!"

"Um-hm. I'm not interested in Robert Browning. All I want is that piece.

Speak it."

Astonished and not comprehending this demand in the least, Tabitha began falteringly, somewhat indifferently:

"I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;"