consternation, "I, or rather, Amy and I, promised
Mrs. Sanderson we'd gather some flowers for her, and now we've got to do
it, even if it is late--"

"Of course we have," agreed Mollie, rising with alacrity. "It wouldn't do
at all to disappoint her."

"It must have been a pretty lonely day for her," said Amy thoughtfully, as
she snapped the lid of a basket shut. "I wish she had come with us."

"Well, we're pretty much in the same boat as she is--or will be soon,"
mused Mollie, as the girls scattered to make good Betty's promise.

"How so?" queried Amy.

"Why," said Mollie, "she's already lost her boy and now we're about to
lose ours."

"Goodness, Mollie," cried Grace indignantly, while the others chuckled,
"you make me feel eighty years old. They're not our sons, you know."

"Of course you had to tell me that--" Mollie was beginning, when a scream
from Amy and a hurried scramble onto a convenient stump interrupted her.

"What is it?" they cried, running to her anxiously.

"Look out, look out," Amy cried, bringing them up with a sharp turn a
couple of feet from her perch.

"What is it?" they cried again, looking wildly about them.

"A snake," she screamed. "Look out, Grace, it's coming for you! Oh, look
out!"

Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, the girls looked where Amy pointed, and saw,
wriggling ominously toward them through the short grass, a large
coppery-headed snake.

Grace gave one desperate leap and landed beside Amy on the stump while
Betty and Mollie stepped to one side out of the reptile's path. Then,
almost miraculously--or so Betty thought when she looked back upon it
afterward--her eye fell upon a forked twig lying at her feet.

Quick as light she stooped and picked it up, then turned to Mollie, who
was standing backed up against a tree, white-faced, terrified, in a
half-hypnotized condition, staring at the snake.

The reptile had coiled itself and lay hissing at them viciously.

"I'm going to hold out this stick," whispered Betty feverishly between
lips that scarcely moved, "and when he strikes, pick up that rock at your
feet and let him have it. Ready?"

"Y-yes," stammered poor Mollie, terrified, yet game to the last. "Oh,
Betty--"

But the sentence was never finished for, with a menacing movement, Betty
had thrust the stick toward the reptile and the latter with a hiss had
struck.

Quick as a flash and before the snake had time to coil again, Mollie
picked up the rock and hurled it at h