rattle snake; still not
suspecting the charm, he goes back about twenty yards to a hedge to get
a stick to kill the snake, and at his return found the snake removed,
and coiled in the same place from whence he had moved the hare. This put
him into immediate thoughts of looking for the hare again, and he soon
spied her about ten feet off the snake, in the same place to which she
had started when he whipt her. She was now lying down, but would
sometimes raise herself on her fore feet struggling as it were for life
or to get away, but could never raise her hinder parts from the ground,
and then would fall flat on her side again, panting vehemently. In this
condition the hare and snake were when he called me; and though we all
three came up within fifteen feet of the snake to have a full view of
the whole, he took no notice at all of us, nor so much as gave a glance
towards us. There we stood at least half an hour, the snake not altering
a jot, but the hare often struggling and falling on its side again, till
at last the hare lay still as dead for some time. Then the snake moved
out of his coil, and slid gently and smoothly on towards the hare, his
colors at that instant being ten times more glorious and shining than at
other times. As the snake moved along, the hare happened to fetch
another struggle, upon which the snake made a stop, laying at his
length, till the hare had lain quiet again for a short space; and then
he advanced again till he came up to the hinder parts of the hare, which
in all this operation had been towards the snake; there he made a survey
all over the hare, raising part of his body above it, then turned off
and went to the head and nose of the hare, after that to the ears, took
the ears in his mouth one after the other, working each apart in his
mouth as a man does a wafer to moisten it, then returned to the nose
again, and took the face into his mouth, straining and gathering his
lips sometimes by one side of his mouth, sometimes by the other; at the
shoulders he was a long time puzzled, often hauling and stretching the
hare out at length, and straining forward first one side of his mouth
then the other, till at last he got the whole body into his throat. Then
we went to him, and taking the twist band off from my hat, I made a
noose and put it about his neck. This made him at length very furious,
but we having secured him, put him into one end of a wallet, and carried
him on horseback five miles to M