Yes, it was only fancy! "A rattlesnake! I nearly trod on him," he said in broken Spanish words that he had picked up, and then walked in as careless a manner as he could assume toward the mound where Francisco Alvarez sat.

But he could not wholly control himself--the shock had been too great--and his body yet trembled.

He did not know it, but the pallor of his face showed through the tan, and Alvarez noticed it.
"You have had a fright, Senor Wyatt," he said in his precise, cold English.

"What is it ?" "Not a fright," replied Wyatt in tones that he sought to make indifferent, "but a start.

I nearly trod on a rattlesnake that lay coiled ready to strike, and I got away just in time." The Spaniard regarded him with a penetrating look, but the chilly blue eyes expressed nothing.