en down so? Why, he's harmless as a
catterpillar. Come down and see for yourself, Mister Ralph."

"No, no!" pleaded Lina, faint and trembling, for the reaction of the
recent terror was upon her, and she grew sick now that the danger was
over. "I am ill--blind--Ralph--Ralph!"

She spoke his name in faint murmurs, her head fell forward and her eyes
closed. Ralph thought she was dying. He remembered that the rattlesnake
had touched her in his first spring, and took the faintness as the
working of his venom in her veins. He called out in the agony of this
thought,--

"Ben! Ben! she is dying--she is dead--he struck her!"

Ben gave the rattlesnake a vigorous lash, which turned him on his back
again, and sprang up the rocks.

"Have you killed him? Is he dead? Oh, Ben, he has struck her on her arm
or hand, perhaps! Look, look--see if you can find the wound!"

Ben gave a hasty glance at the white face lying upon Ralph's shoulder,
uttered a smothered humph, and with this emphatic expression turned to
watch the common enemy. The snake had turned slowly over upon the moss
and was slinking away through a crevice in the rocks. Ben uttered a
mellow chuckling laugh as his rattles disappeared.

"Did you see him, the sneak? Did you see him steal off?" he said,
looking at Ralph.

CHAPTER IV.

LINA COMES OUT OF HER FAINTING FIT.

Ralph lifted his white face to old Ben and broke forth fiercely:

"You should have crushed him--ground him to powder. He has poisoned all
the sweet life in her veins. She is dying, Ben, she is dying!"

Ben threw down the ash branch and plunged one hand into a pocket in
search of his tobacco box. With great deliberation he rolled up a
quantity of the weed and deposited it under one cheek, before he
attempted to answer either the pleading looks or passionate language of
the youth.

"Mister Ralph, it's plain as a marlin-spike, you ain't used to snakes
and wimmen. In that partiklar your education's been shamefully
neglected. Never kill a rattlesnake arter he's shut in his fangs and
turns on his back for mercy--its sneakin' business. Never think a woman
is dead till the sexton sends in his bill. Snakes and feminine wimmen is
hard to kill. Now any landshark, as has his eyes out of his heart, could
see that Miss Lina's only took a faintin' turn, that comes after a skeer
like hers, axactly as sleep stills a tired baby. Just give her here now,
I'll take her down the river, throw a cap full of water