 The Adventures of Christopher Welles program, formally scheduled at this time, is now broadcast at a new time on Tuesday evenings. Tune in for the Adventures of Christopher Welles next Tuesday and every Tuesday at 9.30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. You are standing at the doorway of a cabin on Cacier Creek, upon the ridge the bloodhounds have caught your scent. And between you and a fortune between you and escape yawn the white jaws of a deadly cottonmouth. Escape, produced and directed by William N. Robeson, and carefully contrived to free you from the four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure. Tonight we escape to the worn out acres of a poor white trash farmer, somewhere in the southern mountains, in Irving S. Cobb's great tale of vengeance, Snake Doctor. This story is about snakes and two men. One man was afraid of snakes and the other wasn't. The one who wasn't was known along Cacier Creek as Snake Doctor. His cabin was near the creek bottom land where there was a powerful lot of cotton mouths. And he earned his meager living by rendering down their soft fats, bottling the oil and selling it. For everyone knew there was no remedy for rheumatism like snake oil. Snake Doctor was harmless enough, but there were folks who honestly believed that he was a colleague of Bilgebub just because he wasn't afraid of snakes. And that's not all they believed about him. Now, the man who was afraid of snakes was J. F. Marner, who was Snake Doctor's nearest neighbor. J. F. was the kind of man we all know who suspected, feared, and hated anything he didn't understand. And he understood neither cotton mouths nor the Snake Doctor. In short, J. F. was honor, ignorant, and shiftless. He'd rather shoot squirrels and chop cotton. He'd rather fish than hoe corn. And that's just what he's doing now, fishing down to big hole with his son and heir, Finney, who's old enough, but not quite bright enough to handle a gun. Missed him, doggy! Finney, you're playing fool! I told you not... He gets him the crick, the cottonmouth! Trampon him in front of you! The cottonmouth was a permit, honestly! You got him! You got him keep your foot on him while I fetch a stick! You don't need to, son. Now, he's dead. Now, come here. How'd you hear anything of that raffle, Pa? I had a beat drawn on him right and I couldn't... You're a damn fool! Why not a blame snake whilst I'm a-fishing? Heck, you were son of yourself, not more than two there from you. How'd you like to get yourself a bit? Won't be no fish around here till foundation after all that racket. Well, come on, let's go home and get us some vittles. Jayf Marner tossed his bait can into the creek and threw a stick after it. He stood there, watching the stick drift slowly toward the big hole, where the creek widened behind a jam of driftwood. Jayf watched as the eddy caught the stick and sucked it beneath the dam. Jayf was curious. He moved downstream a rod or two and waited, watching the water boil up from under the driftwood. But the stick didn't come up. That was strange. Must have caught under there in a tangler water-soaked and sunken logs. Probably it'd stay there for months. Maybe. Stay there always. Jayf considered this and an idea began to form in his slow mind as he had finished out at home. Hey Pa, how much oil you reckon's in this one? Pa? Pa? What you drawing about, son? This old cotton man. How much oil you reckon- Throw it down. Throw it down? Why? Throw it down like I say, I'll make you wish- Oh, Pa! I was aiming on rendering the old cotton man's fat like the snake doctor does. Maybe sell it and make myself some money. I don't like squirming things around me. But it's dead. Leave it where it dropped. Now, come on, let's go home. You're scared on cotton mouths, Pa? I know better than to get myself bit by them. Tip Bailey know the fella got himself bit once and there weren't a drop of liquor for miles. So he goes to work and cuts open the live chicken and puts it by his leg where the bite was and fella lived too. Wrecking Mr. Rives ever get yourself bit, Pa? Handling cotton mouths like he does? Who? Mr. Rives. Who? Mr. Rives. That's old snake doctor's real name. Ma says I oughtn't to call him snake doctor. Never mind what your Ma says. Nobody in my family is calling no snake-loving scum Mr. Rives. Heck, that's what I say. We'll see what you do. Sure, Pa. You know, I could have made myself some money rendering that cotton mouse fat down in the oil. How much you reckon old snake doctor makes out in the middle of the night? I don't know. Tiff Bailey says old snake doctor's got more than a thousand dollars hit away some hairs in his cabin. More than that, most likely. Cussing old mice that don't spend nothin'. Ain't got nothin' to say about old rackabones mare. Tiff Bailey says whenever old snake doctor sets foot out in his place, he's got the granddaddy of all cotton mouths that he leaves out in the cabin to stand guard on his money. Tiff Bailey says he's got the granddaddy of all cotton mouths that he leaves out in the cabin to stand guard on his money. Tiff Bailey says he sees old snake doctor put him in his pocket, live cotton mouths. Snake doctor ain't fittin' to be alive itself. Oh, ma says he ain't bad. Says he don't mean nobody, huh? You ma better be careful who she's so Satan with. She says he don't have good sense. Had the fever too much, she says. You ever been to snake doctor's cabin, Pa? I don't have nothin' more than I have to to do with that snake love and who do. But that wouldn't be no task at all for some no good poke around in the snake doctor's shack and find all the money and make off with it. Huh. Oh, this blames and done here rendin' me down. Look at my head full of sweat, Pa. Here, look it. See? Done here guard full of sweat come off me. Why it turnin' down that way, Pa? It's come on noon, dinner be most ready. I'm gonna tell a snake love and who do that there's some of them cotton miles on the crick side of our dead man. Oh, here, keynote's there. I'm gonna tell him he's got my leave to catch him. You don't need to come along if you don't want it. Well, if you're goin' over to his place, I'd kinda like to see it my own self. He ain't to home else to show to his self by now. I reckon so. Can you see any of the snakes, Pa? I told you to keep an eye out for him. I betin' one of them chinks, Pa. Must be a dang snake itself livin' in a place like this. Pa, I know you ain't lookin' for any money, but if and you was, wouldn't you lookin' that chink right up there? Where, son? Right there, second log by the fireplace on the right. You see that there whole? Yeah, I reckon I would look up there. Well, since we're here. Might as well see for myself. Oh, I wouldn't be a might surprise if old snake doctor... Pa? Pa? Huh? Somebody's out on the porch. It's a snake doctor. You're lookin' for something, Chief Mourner? Yeah, I was lookin' for you. I want you. Yeah, yeah. Look here, you old hoodo. What's the idea of snakin' up on folks who took a trouble to come all the way down here to do you a favor? Like it's not that old snake doctor. He's got a fortune ram in his pocket. We'll see what's talkin' to you, Pa. Did you mind how his eyes was when he come in? Dang, if it wasn't blazin' like when you run across a little rabbit or cat in the dark. It scared me out of ten years' growth. Dang, if it didn't. And did you mind how I kept lookin' up at the wall where I said I bet he had the money between the chink and something? Hey, don't you say nothin' to your ma about us being at the snake doctor's place. You understand? Why should I, Pa? Hey, don't you go nigh it again. Cuss, old vomit. You'd have thought we was prowlers the way he acted. Fini? Yup, ma. Dinner about ready? You pour with your tongue? Yeah, have I time enough for dinner to go down the spring, get me some more cold water? Fini? Hurry it up, son. I'm hungry. Can't you change him, Jay? How you think I can catch fish with Fini firein' off my gun at cotton miles all the time? Ain't there's heat mo' on the body conveyer? No. Any cooler by the creep? No. Well, they put all miss Rives come by here spell ago. My nigh shook the pieces with a chill. Oh, he come by, did he? What did he come in? Just for a minute. Just for a minute, eh? What he want? He wanted could I give him something for his ailment? He just about could drag one side foot for the other. Barely could make it up here from his place. I reckon he must be down bed with the fever, but now I can tell by the touch it was rising and then one of left here and start back home again. I'll give him a dose, startin' our butler's egg a drop. I woulda give him a little smidgen of liquor. Oh, your word, eh? Oh, please don't, Jay. Don't do this. Don't want me. For all miss Rives. Miss Rives. Miss Rives. How many times I gotta tell you that the old hoodlum's name is Snake Doctor? He don't mean nobody know how. Him and its skin allows for its hide and teller and you callin' him Miss Rives. You'll be callin' him honey and sugar next. Well, without I learn you better. Oh, please, Jay, please. Paid names, huh? Tell by the touch, could you? Well, I aim to lie. What's his name now? Well, what's your poor Miss Rives name now? Kizzy mourn her rubbed the ugly red welter in a scrawny arm and gave the frying pan full of sizzlin' side meat a hopeless nudge. She prayed that the weight of the vitals might take the edge off Jay's temper. Finny slouched in from the spring and saw the mark on her arm. Pa'll be wampin' you again, ma. She didn't answer. What'd you do this time? She silently dished up the hogback and cornbread for two men and while they sat at table, she ate on her feet, serving them between bites as was the custom in the mourner household. After dinner, Finny stretched out under the china berry tree and Kizzy sat on the porch, fanning herself and dipping snuff with a peach twig, scouring it back and forth on her gums. Jay took Kizzy's on the floor of the back room, but he didn't sleep. One thing he'd seen that day and another thing he'd heard, he was adding them together. That stick that had disappeared under the log jam and the snake doctor's money. It was four o'clock before any of them stood and then Jay spoke to his wife for the first time since noon. Where's that violet drinking liquor, Kizzy? By the window. You took it out in your pocket after you laid it down. I ought to carry a violet drinking liquor with me, ma. I might get bit by an old Marcus and Sue's paw wood. Well, you better not let me catch you. You find it, Jay? I just remembered. I won't be needing to tote no spits along with me while I'm going. I wouldn't take no chance, Jay. Just one cotton mouth bite. Cotton mouth sold on the slashes else along the creek. Well, I'll be this evening up on Bailey's Ridge in the high ground. I aim to gun me a chance of young squirrels between now and dust time. Rick, and I'll come along, Pa. You're staying here, son. Oh, dang it. There he comes, Dan. Pa, you might be needing me. You stay here. Oh, Pa. And Kizzy set me up a snack of cold supper on the shelf. Luckily, I won't get back to his plum ton. J.F. Monner turned north through his struggling cornrows, and in a minute, he was lost from sight. He kept on for nearly a mile until he came to a wild red mulberry tree. Where mulberries are, they're bound to be squirmed. Very neatly, he shot two young grays through the head, but J.F. was a master marksman and unsuspected by anyone who knew him. J.F. had another quality denied most of his kind. He had an imagination. Today, it was an excellent working order. He tied the brain squirrels together and swung them over his shoulder. If needed, they would be his alibi. Then he sat down under a tree a while. And I got plenty of time. Don't need to get down to Snake Doctor's place with Bob Dust when he comes out to feed that swayback mare of his. Mr. Vines. He sat out two brisk thundershaws and the intervals between them. Then he started off in a wide arc down Bailey's branch along the skirts of little cypress slabs to the sunken flat's edge and cashier creek. Took more than an hour, careful traveling before he came to his destination. A screen of haul bushes. Less than 50 yards behind the Snake Doctor's cabin. No matter how ill he is, he'll get up and come out to feed that rack of bones mare. Mr. Vines. I'll learn him to go colleaguein' around another man's woman. Marner let his jealousy heat him to a white hatred. At this moment, he was a vengeance his honor and thus was spared the embarrassment of admitting to himself that the real reason he was here was the Snake Doctor's money hidden behind the log by the fireplace. The home wreckin' snake lovin' vomit. Ten minutes an hour I'll chunk him down the big hole in the creek like I did at Sticker's morning and he'll go down and never come out. And nobody'll miss him. Nobody'll know he's gone for at least wise a week, maybe a month. Maybe if I get around to it, I might come back this way someday. I might come back this way someday. I might poke around that cabin I his in. Dave Marner's speculations were cut short. The cabin door opened and a figure stepped out into the growing dusk and walked toward the stable. He saw the Snake Doctor's loppy old straw hat and his dark coat drawn over his narrow shoulders. At this distance he couldn't miss. And he didn't. The figure jerked backward and then went face forward. Dave started for him and then he stopped. His eyes bugged, his mouth formed a scream that he couldn't utter. His rifle dropped to the ground. He had just killed the Snake Doctor. Killed him dead with a 32 caliber slug through the head. And there on his door sill stood Snake Doctor whole and sound and staring at him. Dave Marner, what are you doing? The scream came at last for Dave Marner had seen the devil. The Snake Doctor who rose alive from his bullet riddled body. Dave whirled and ran into the deep darkened woods whimpering like a whipped puppy as he tore through the brush. Escape, he must escape. He must get under the shelter of a sound roof, have the protection of four walls around him. So he ran and ran for hours. It was close to midnight when he came out on a dirt road a short distance southeast of his dead man. Beyond the next bend he'd be inside a home. Then he stopped. Around the bend come and taught him was a juggling light, a lantern hanging on a buggy. Jake flattened himself in a clump of brush to hide until the traveler passed. And then, just as the rig was opposite him he heard a call coming from the other direction. Open it out from the junction tolerable tired if anyone should ask you. What brings you out this time that day with somebody sick? Set nothing that's been hella poppin' in these here bottoms tonight. Now what you mean? A killing, that's what I mean, a dirty cold blooded killing if there was one. It happened just around dust time at old snake doctor's place. Was him was killed? It seems like snake doctor's been a killing lately. Pretty bad off today. So long about five o'clock the rain was a-lullin' a little bit while Miss Kitty mourned. She footed it down from her place to his and fetchin' some physical weather. Miss mourned is a mighty thoughty one for doin' things for folk. Don't you want to hear this? Seems like she wasn't afraid of the snake doctor's place. I'd have been all over that. Pretty soon after she got there seems like he tried to get up out of his bed to go feed that old crow bait nag of his. Rain has started in again but then it's pouring down hard to stay where he is at and she put on his old hat and threw his old coat around her to keep off the west of the wet and then she started out the back door to do the feeding herself. And no more than she got outside and a shot come from the edge of the woods and down she went with a bullet through her brain and killed it. Dead as a dog. But who done it? That low flung husband of hers done it. That's who. He must have followed her down to snake doctor's and carried the shot and he catch the quick look of Jeff over the fence. Yeah, there was a long streak on his arm where he must have whooped her out during the day. Well, hanging the sight too good for him to catch him? No, but they will. Some thinks that he's made for the slashes and hid out there. Tracks let all fat away. Or they'd be a line of men thrown all the way around Little Cypress for son of. Sheriff got there yet? No, but he's doing him in it with his pack of dogs. A telephone then from Gallup Mills like it is. Old snake doctor he's crying on and raving around up at mourner's place that the Lord's going to strike the murder down his track. I'm putting my main confidence in them bloodhounds on them first and then maybe on the stout plow line and limb retreat. Yeah, it's more certain. I'm just putting out for my place to fetch my oldest boy. I wouldn't want him to miss a lynching. There's a good side crowd up there already. I'll go up and join him. I got officially on my hip pocket. Poor Miss Marner, she always was a good hunter. She's dead. A shot kissy. Did you hear something just there? I can't say I did. Probably a rabbit breaking through the brush. Listen, listen. Sheriff's are coming. You can hear them hounds of hills. Not got to hurry. Get up there. I'll see you back tomorrow. Well, you sure will. Jaffe didn't have time to waste Marner and his dead wife. He was even little relieved to know that the snake doctor wasn't the devil incarnate. He had a lot of bloodhounds. This was the kind of antagonist he could understand and outsmart. Jaffe's imagination went to work again as he backtracked along the creek bottom in the spot of moonlight. Got to throw them dogs off a trail. Got to wait the creek even if it is full of cotton mouths. They must be all around me now. But folks says they don't strike no water. Well, I hope them folks is right. Got to get back to the snake doctors. Get his money while he's still here. Get his money while he's still up in my place with kids his remains. Get his money then the rest would be easy. Make for the deep timber. Close country river. Make it with a Mara sundown. hire a shanty boater to fare me to the Arkansas side. Get a haircut and catch a train for some as hells. Got to get snake doctor's money first. Snake doctor's cabin was dark and empty when Jaffe reached it. And he needed lots of money. He had a lot of money. And Jaffe reached it. And he needed light for his search. There were a few dull embers in the fireplace. He threw on some kindling. But it didn't light. Very well, he knew where the chick was. He'd find it in the dark. He scrambled at the logs, felt some bark give. Felt the clay mortar crumble under his fingernails. Here it was. A hole big enough for a man's arm. He plunged his hand into it. Touched something slick and smooth. And then something sharp plunged into his thumb. Fire flickered to life. Jaffe yanked his hand out of the hole. Saw two tiny bleeding punches in his thumb. At the mouth of the hole stretched the wide open jaws of a cottonmouth. It worked fast. He felt the pain leaping from his thumb to his hand, seeping up his arm. He only had some liquor. He had a fresh-killed chicken to slap on the wound. He had nothing. Then a sharp, horrible pain wrenched his heart. And a second. And there in the firelight the huge cottonmouth poised in its crevice. Jaffe leaped out of the shack and started blindly for the timber. Stagged, stumbled, and pits forward on his face. His open mouth full of weeds and muddy grass stems. The cramp in fingers of his outstretched right hand almost touching a reddish black smear on the wet, crampled grass. Wet, trampled grass. Didn't spot gravy-ass good riddance. I'd call it that, wouldn't you, Dr. Bradshaw? Well, I reckon it's sort of a rough justice in the way he died. Look, look, his hand reaching out. Just about touches the blood where his woman fell. This has been quite a night, Davis. I've just examined the body of a man who appears to have been killed by a snake bite. Kill good and quick, too, judging by the evidence. Well, Doc ain't that the way a cottonmouth always does kill a man, I always hear it tell. Never mind what you hear, I'm going by the facts. I've been practicing medicine in this county for going on to 46 years and I tell you that in all my life I've never known but two or three people actually being bitten by water moccasins. And until tonight I've never had the personal knowledge of anybody dying from a bite of any kind of a snake. Well, is that a fact? Hey, what's going on over there, Doc? Is that Marner's boy kicking up the first? Yeah, he's no good just like his paw. What's your trouble tip? I'm going to kill the snake and bit my paw. Men, I'm going to give that old snake doctor a weapon for keeping a reptile in this place. Here, paw, God just waters his due, Fanny. Snake doctor ain't to blame the... He's a who-do devil. Now, look here, boy. Mr. Rives promised all his savings nearly a hundred dollars to pay for burying your ma decent. Now, that's how much he thought of her. Now, now go on home, behave yourself. Yeah, go on. Somebody ought to kill that reptile and bit my paw and I'm going to do it. Hey, Doc, just a minute ago you started to say something about snake bite not killing. How do you account for Jaffe here? The late Jaffe Marner had a rotten bad heart, Davis. Oh, he sure did. Yes, it proves that. I don't mean in that sense. I mean, there was an organic weakness. Curious thing, though. There was no swelling anywhere. Well, there's him two marks on his thumb, him snake gashes like something I've seen. Now, that don't explain... Hey, it's Fitty Marner. He's in the cabin. That fool kid, come on, Doc. He's probably shot somebody. I shot at him. I shot at him, but I didn't hit him. He didn't get me like he got my paw. Hey, come on, Doc. Come on. He said he shot at something in the cabin. All right. I don't see anything. Oh, Fitty said enough happened to him yesterday to upset even the bright boy. So we can... Oh, there it is. What? That cotton mouth up there in the hole that long. Oh, oh, that. The snake doctor told me about that vomit. Look at him closer, David. Oh, no, sir, he's not going on. He's just a stuffed snake. Stuffed? Yeah. Snake doctor believes in precautions. Because that hole's where he hides his money. That snake could scare anybody away who didn't know it was stuffed. But just to be sure, old snake doctor lined the hole with coils of barbed wire. Oh, oh, oh, I see. You think it then marks on Jay's thumb what's got off of the barbed wire, huh? It could be. Lots stronger hearts and Jay's mourners would have stopped beating at a scare like that. Well, I'll be sweet. Old snake doctor's a cute woman. Escape produced and directed by William N. Robeson has brought you Snake Doctor by Irvin S. Cobb. Adapted for radio by Fred Howard, who also played Doc Bradshaw. With Bill Conrad as Jay, Paul Freese as Finney, Ruth Parrot as Kizzy. Barton Yarborough played Davis, Louis van Rooten, played Snake Doctor in Tip Bailey. The original musical score was conceived and conducted by Cy Fuhrer. Next week. You were alone in a remote old world village inhabited by cat people. And you were desired by a beautiful cat girl who wants your soul. Next week we escape with Algernon Blackwood's eerie story titled Ancient Sorcerers. Good night then until the same time next week when we again offer you Escape. This is CBS where 99 million people gather every week the Columbia Broadcasting System.