"Of course, the revolution of the wheel swung the remainder of the body clear of the bush, and the tail whizzed by my head. To my fear and horror, the next instant my left wrist was seized as in a grasp of iron by the tail. The head, after one or two sickening thuds on the hard road, which must have temporarily stunned the creature, slipped out on the left side, when the momentum of the wheel immediately strung the entire body straight out behind me, where it streamed with all its twenty pounds weight acting as a brake." "A brake?" said Long Jim. "Yes, sir. As the tail seized my wrist, the curve of it took a bend also round the handle bar. To that circumstance I owe my life. The slackening in the speed of the machine, over which I had lost control, owing to the dead weight of the serpent, prevented what would most certainly have been a fatal smash among the boulders in the river bed. As it was, the bicycle narrowly missed a large rock, and ran straight into deep water, where it was, of course, brought to a stop. You notice that my clothes are wringing wet still. I was, of course, thrown out of the saddle by the jerk of the sudden stoppage, but as my wrist was manacled to the handle bar I was in danger of suffocation by drowning." The stranger paused, and Abe observed him with an admiring glance. "How did you escape?" asked Long Jim. "Why, sir, owing to the gratitude of that serpent. The cold bath revived him, and when he realised the situation, he swam ashore and drew me out with the machine. Yes, gentlemen, I assure you that was the case. Then he unwound his tail and moved his wounded head, while regarding me with a bright, but rather disconcerting, stare. I realised in a flash what he was waiting for, and I rang the bell for five minutes, when he slowly moved off into the wood, looking very sick from the severe bashing. I do not ask you to believe the story, gentlemen, but I am convinced that if the next time you come down Blaauw Krantz on a bicycle you ring your bell you will credit me with keeping to the exact facts." "That beats your yarns, Abe Pike," said Si Amos, who had often been the butt of the old man; "beats them to smithers." "Jest does, and no mistake," said Long Jim. "Why, Abe couldn't tell a story like that, with `circumstance' in it, to save his life," said a third. Abe shook his head sadly, and left the store, the stranger bidding him good-bye very politely, then turning to join in the laugh. He was a very pleasant young fellow, and he received our open flattery with a quite affable air. Old Abe, however, had not retired vanquished from the scene. When we trooped out of the store we saw him lost in solemn contemplation of the stranger's bicycle. "A good horse, is it not?" said the stranger slyly. "Like to mount?"