*       *       *       *       *

On the twenty-second evening of the journey a savage wind made it
imperative, for the sake of the mules, to camp in as sheltered a spot
as possible; and Audrey persuaded her husband to take advantage of
a cliff which rose uncommonly high above the dried bed of a former
tributary of the Canadian River. He did not like the rocky cast of the
place, but allowed himself to be overruled this once; leading the
animals sullenly toward the protecting slope, which the nature of the
ground would not allow the wagon to approach. Audrey, examining the rocks near the wagon, meanwhile noticed a
singular sniffing on the part of the feeble old dog. Seizing a rifle,
she followed his lead, and presently thanked her stars that she had
forestalled Walker in her discovery. For there, snugly nested in the
gap between two boulders, was a sight it would have done him no good
to see. Visible only as one convoluted expanse, but perhaps comprising
as many as three or four separate units, was a mass of lazy wriggling
which could not be other than a brood of new-born rattlesnakes. Anxious to save Walker from a trying shock, Audrey did not hesitate to
act, but took the gun firmly by the barrel and brought the butt down
again and again upon the writhing objects. Her own sense of loathing
was great, but it did not amount to a real fear. Finally she saw that
her task was done, and turned to cleanse the improvised bludgeon in the
red sand and dry, dead grass near by. She must, she reflected, cover
the nest up before Walker got back from tethering the mules. Old Wolf,
tottering relic of mixed shepherd and coyote ancestry that he was, had
vanished, and she feared he had gone to fetch his master. Footsteps at that instant proved her fear well founded. A second more,
and Walker had seen everything. Audrey made a move to catch him if
he should faint, but he did no more than sway. Then the look of pure
fright on his bloodless face turned slowly to something like mingled
awe and anger, and he began to upbraid his wife in trembling tones. "Gawd's sake, Aud, but why'd ye go for to do that? Hain't ye heerd all
the things they've ben tellin' about this snake-devil Yig? Ye'd ought
to a told me, and we'd a moved on. Don't ye know they's a devil-god
what gets even if ye hurts his children? What for d'ye think the Injuns
all dances and beats their drums in the fall about? This land's under a
curse, I tell ye--nigh every soul we've a-talked to sence we come in's
said the same. Yig rules here, an' he comes out every fall for to git
his victims and turn 'em into snakes. Why, Aud, they won't none of them
Injuns acrost the Canayjin kill a snake for love nor money! "Gawd knows what ye done to yourself, gal, a-stompin' out a hull brood
o' Yig's chillen. He'll git ye, sure, sooner er later, unlessen I kin
buy a charm offen some o' the Injun medicine-men. He'll git ye, Aud, as
sure's they's a Gawd in heaven--he'll come outa the night and turn ye
into a crawlin' spotted snake!" All the rest of the journey Walker kept up the frightened reproofs
and prophecies. They crossed the Canadian near Newcastle, and soon
afterward met with the first of the real plains Indians they had
seen--a party of blanketed Wichitas, whose leader talked freely
under the spell of the whisky offered him, and taught poor Walker a
long-winded protective charm against Yig in exchange for a quart bottle
of the same inspiring fluid. By the end of the week the chosen site in
the Wichita country was reached, and the Davises made haste to trace
their boundaries and perform the spring plowing before even beginning
the construction of a cabin. The region was flat, drearily windy, and sparse of natural vegetation,
but promised great fertility under cultivation. Occasional outcroppings
of granite diversified a soil of decomposed red sandstone, and here
and there a great flat rock would stretch along the surface of the
ground like a man-made floor. There seemed to be very few snakes, or
possible dens for them, so Audrey at last persuaded Walker to build the
one-room cabin over a vast, smooth slab of exposed stone. With such
a flooring and with a good-sized fireplace the wettest weather might
be defied--though it soon became evident that dampness was no salient
quality of the district. Logs were hauled in the wagon from the nearest
belt of woods, many miles toward the Wichita Mountains. Walker built his wide-chimneyed cabin and crude barn with the aid of
some of the other settlers, though the nearest one was over a mile
away. In turn, he helped his helpers at similar house-raisings, so that
many ties of friendship sprang up between the new neighbors. There was
no town worthy the name nearer than El Reno, on the railway thirty
miles or more to the northeast; and before many weeks had passed, the
people of the section had become very cohesive despite the wideness
of their scattering. The Indians, a few of whom had begun to settle
down on ranches, were for the most part harmless, though somewhat
quarrelsome when fired by the liquid stimulation which found its way to
them despite all government bans. Of all the neighbors the Davises found Joe and Sally Compton, who
likewise hailed from Arkansas, the most helpful and congenial. Sally is
still alive, known now as Grandma Compton; and her son Clyde, then an
infant in arms, has become one of the leading men of the state. Sally
and Audrey used to visit each other often, for their cabins were only
two miles apart; and in the long spring and summer afternoons they
exchanged many a tale of old Arkansas and many a rumor about the new
country. Sally was very sympathetic about Walker's weakness regarding snakes,
but perhaps did more to aggravate than cure the parallel nervousness
which Audrey was acquiring through his incessant praying and
prophesying about the curse of Yig. She was uncommonly full of gruesome
snake stories, and produced a direfully strong impression with her
acknowledged masterpiece--the tale of a man in Scott County who had
been bitten by a whole horde of rattlers at once, and had swelled so
monstrously from poison that his body had finally burst with a pop. Needless to say, Audrey did not repeat this anecdote to her husband,
and she implored the Comptons to beware of starting it on the rounds
of the countryside. It is to Joe's and Sally's credit that they heeded
this plea with the utmost fidelity. Walker did his corn-planting early, and in midsummer improved his time
by harvesting a fair crop of the native grass of the region. With the
help of Joe Compton he dug a well which gave a moderate supply of very
good water, though he planned to sink an artesian later on. He did not
run into many serious snake scares, and made his land as inhospitable
as possible for wriggling visitors.