In half an hour the virus would have so great a grip upon him that it would be practically useless to apply any of the antidotes commonly known to the inhabitants of the country.
Inquiries that he had made at Dry Bottom had resulted in the discovery that the Two Diamond ranch was nearly thirty miles from the town.

If he had averaged eight miles an hour he had covered about twenty-four miles of the distance.

That would still leave about six.

And he could not hope to ride those six miles in time to get any benefit from an antidote.
His lips straightened, he stared grimly at a ridge of somber hills that fringed the skyline.

They had told him back in Dry Bottom that the Two Diamond ranch was somewhere in a big basin below those hills.
"I reckon I won't get there, after all," he said, commenting aloud.
Thereafter he rode grimly on, keeping a good grip upon himself--for he had seen men bitten by rattlers who had lost their self-control--and they had not been good to look upon.