snorting horses, giving her room; Stent
dismounted, picked up a pig-nut, and threw it accurately. Instantly the
fat mud-coloured fold slipped over the root and a head appeared rising
straight out of the coils up into the air--a flat and rather small head
on a horribly swollen body, stump-tailed, disgusting. The head was
looking at them, stretched high, fully a third of the creature in the
air. Then, soundlessly, the wide-slitted mouth opened; and Hamil saw its
silky white lining.

"Moccasins stand their ground," said the girl, raising her gun. The shot
crashed out; the snake collapsed. For fully a minute they watched; not a
fold even quivered.

"Struck by lightning," said Gray; "the buzzards will get him." And he
drew a folding butterfly net from his saddle boot, affixed ring and
gauze bag, and cantered forward briskly in the wake of a great velvety
black butterfly which was sailing under the live-oaks above his head.

His father, wishing to talk to Eudo Stent, rode ahead with the guide,
leaving Shiela and Hamil to follow.

The latter reined in and waited while the girl leisurely returned the
fowling-piece to its holster. Then, together, they walked their horses
forward, wading the "branch" which flowed clear as a trout stream out
of the swamp on their right.

"It looks drinkable," he said.

"It is, for Crackers; but there's fever in it for you, Mr. Hamil....
Look at Gray! He's missed his butterfly. But it's a rather common
one--the black form of the tiger swallow-tail. Just see those
zebra-striped butterflies darting like lightning over the palmetto
scrub! Gray and I could never catch them until one day we found a ragged
one that couldn't fly and we placed it on a leaf; and every time one of
those butterflies came our way it paused in its flight for a second and
hovered over the ragged one. And that's how Gray and I caught the swift
Ajax butterflies for his collection!... I've helped him considerably, if
you please; I brought him the mysterious Echo moth from Ormond, and a
wonderful little hornet moth from Jupiter Inlet."

She was rattling on almost feverishly, never looking at him, restless in
her saddle, shifting bridle, adjusting stirrups, gun-case, knotting and
reknotting her neckerchief, all with that desperate attempt at composure
which betrays the courage that summons it.

"Shiela, dear!"

"What!" she said, startled into flushed surprise.

"Look at me."

She turned in her saddle, the colour deepeni