is sinister copper head. Her aim was
true, and the long, slithery body, robbed of its deadliness, writhed and
beat furiously at the short stubbly grass.

Mollie put her hands before her eyes, shivering, and even Betty leaned
weakly against a tree, faint and sick, now that the crisis had passed.

"I--I thought you'd be k-killed," moaned Amy, and though the tears of
excitement and horror were rolling down her cheeks, she would have been
the first to deny it had you told her she was crying. "Oh, B-Betty, you're
w-wonderful!"

"No I'm not--I'm just scared stiff," cried Betty hysterically. "Anyway,
M-Mollie did it all."

"Well, let's g-get out of here," cried Grace. Later they had time to laugh
at the chattering teeth that made it impossible to say anything without
stammering--but it seemed anything but funny to them then. "Let's g-get
out!"

"Second the motion," cried Betty, with a wry little twist to her mouth,
being, as usual, the first to recover her self control. "I can't see any
sense in lingering."

A few seconds later they had gathered up their belongings and jumped
thankfully into the road--out of sight of that sinister body still
writhing in the grass.

It was not until they had climbed into the car and were whirling over the
smooth road at a rapid rate that they began to feel like themselves again.

"I guess that was one of the narrowest escapes we ever had," said Mollie
over her shoulder with a laugh that was still a little unsteady. "I guess
we won't go picnicking in the woods alone again for quite some time."

"But I didn't know there were any snakes around here," said Grace
wonderingly, and, it must be admitted, still with a little quaver in her
voice.

"There aren't many," Betty explained, "Allen told me that poisonous snakes
of any sort had been so rarely seen around these parts that people thought
the stories of them were made up. He said they always looked suspiciously
at the bearers of the snake tales, shrugged their shoulders, winked, and
asked each other to guess where So-and-So had been the night before."

"Goodness," cried Mollie. "I suppose we'll never dare to tell it then.
They'll think we are--"

"Slightly inebriated," finished Betty drolly.

"Goodness, I don't know what that means," objected Mollie, "but it sounds
worse than what I was going to say. Now what's the matter?"

This last exclamation was caused by a sudden, grinding noise within the
machine and a jerking stop that jarr