"It would be even better than finding game, if we did come across a water hole," he was telling himself as he pushed on. He heard Roger give a loud yell on the other side of the oasis. Evidently he had just discovered the skulking animal and was shouting to start him in full flight across the sandy waste. But he did not shoot, for which Dick was glad. Now, having arrived at the border of the scrubby trees, Dick jumped down and fastened his horse to a convenient branch. It was his intention to enter the patch of timber on foot, as Roger was doubtless doing from the other side. They could scour the whole of it in a brief time, and find out whether so much as a cup of water was to be obtained. He could hear Roger advancing opposite to him, and knew they would soon meet. Even then he caught sight of the other moving along, though evidently hopeless of finding anything in the shape of game. Dick had just opened his mouth to say something when he was thrilled to hear a dreadful, rattling sound that he knew only too well. At the same time Roger sprang hastily back, and uttered a loud cry of alarm. CHAPTER XXVI AMONG THE NEZ PERCES "LOOK out, Dick, there are rattlesnakes all around here. I can see three of them right in front of you! Get back, Dick, get back, I tell you!" Dick hastened to comply, for by that time he also had detected the presence of the venomous reptiles. They seemed to be of a small species, such as can be found on the plains of the entire West, but their stroke carries just as sure death as though the snakes were twice the size. The boys had often come across them of late, mostly near the colonies of gophers, for the two seemed to be able to dwell together in harmony, though possibly the snakes made an occasional meal from some of the puppies. Roger had already laid aside his gun, and picking up a long stick, he commenced to belabor some of the coiled snakes. "Think you own the earth do you?" Roger was saying, as he plied his stick with vigor, and knocked first one snake and then another into a wriggling mass. "Well, I want to show you that others besides you have a right to breathe, and walk where they please. That makes the fifth one I've smashed, Dick. Did you ever see such a nest of the 'varmints,' as Jasper Williams would call them?" Roger evidently meant to keep on just as long as there was a single one of the ugly, scaly creatures in sight. He certainly had more than his share of antipathy toward all reptiles, for he never let an opportunity to kill one escape him. When he could no longer find anything to hit, Roger consented to drop the stick, secure his rifle, and prepare to leave the scrubby timber. They could find nothing in the way of water, though there must have been something of the sort underground to have allowed those ugly dwarf trees to grow in the first place.