rving. But let a huge one whip about you
in the brake, chill you with an unearthly hissing whistle, then suddenly
rise in front of you, glittering, challenging, sinister! You will be
abashed. I was; and I shall never outgrow the weakness.

It was a big snake. I had not been mistaken in its size. There is nothing
on earth that shrinks as a _dead_ snake; and this one, so far as I know,
is still alive; yet, allowing generously for my imagination, I am sure
the creature measured six feet. His neck, just behind the jaws, was nearly
the size of a broom-handle, which meant a long, hard length curved out in
the ferns behind. It was a male; I could tell by the peculiar musk on the
air, an odor like cut cucumbers.

Fully a minute we eyed each other. Then I took a step forward. The
glittering head rose higher. Off in the ferns there beat a warning
tattoo--the loud whir of the snake's tail against a skunk-cabbage leaf.

In my hand was a slender dogwood switch that I had been poking into the
holes of the digger-wasps up the hillside. If one thing more than another
will turn a snake tail to in a hurry it is the song of a switch. Expecting
to see this overbold fellow jump out of his new skin and lunge off into
the swale, I leaned forward and made the stick sing under his nose. But he
did not jump or budge. He only bent back out of range, swayed from side to
side, and drew more of his black length out into the low grass to better
his position.

The lidless eyes and scale-cased face of a snake might seem incapable of
more than one set expression. Can hate and fear show there? They
certainly can, at least to my imagination. If ever hate and fear mantled a
face, they did this one in the grass. The sound of the switch only
maddened the creature. He had too long dictated terms in this part of the
swale to crawl aside for me.

Nor would I give way to him. But I ceased switching, drew back a step, and
looked at him with more respect than I ever before showed a snake.

The curved neck straightened at that, the glinting head swayed forward,
and shivering through me as the swish of a stick never shivered through a
snake, sounded that unearthly hissing whistle. For a second--for just the
fraction of a second that it takes to jump--I was, not scared, but
shocked; and I slipped on something underfoot. In three directions I
wallowed the ferns before I got to my feet to watch the snake again, and
by that time the snake was gone.

I found mysel