of him and have been struck, for rattlers don't
give way to any one."

"Oh, why didn't you let"--She stopped herself quickly, but could not
stop the fierce glint in her eye nor the sharp curve in her nostril.
Luckily, Leonidas did not see this, being preoccupied with his other
graceful charmer, William Henry.

"But how did you know it was here?" said Mrs. Burroughs, recovering
herself.

"Fetched him here," said Leonidas briefly.

"What in your hands?" she said, drawing back.

"No! made him follow! I HAVE handled him, but it was after I'd first
made him strike his pizen out upon a stick. Ye know, after he strikes
four times he ain't got any pizen left. Then ye kin do anythin' with
him, and he knows it. He knows me, you bet! I've bin three months
trainin' him. Look! Don't be frightened," he said, as Mrs. Burroughs
drew hurriedly back; "see him mind me. Now scoot home, William Henry."

He accompanied the command with a slow, dominant movement of the hickory
rod he was carrying. The snake dropped its head, and slid noiselessly
out of the cleft across the trail and down the hill.

"Thinks my rod is witch-hazel, which rattlers can't abide," continued
Leonidas, dropping into a boy's breathless abbreviated speech. "Lives
down your way--just back of your farm. Show ye some day. Suns himself on
a flat stone every day--always cold--never can get warm. Eh?"

She had not spoken, but was gazing into space with a breathless rigidity
of attitude and a fixed look in her eye, not unlike the motionless orbs
of the reptile that had glided away.

"Does anybody else know you keep him?" she asked.

"Nary one. I never showed him to anybody but you," replied the boy.

"Don't! You must show me where he hides to-morrow," she said, in her old
laughing way. "And now, Leon, I must go back to the house."

"May I write to him--to Jim Belcher, Mrs. Burroughs?" said the boy
timidly.

"Certainly. And come to me to-morrow with your letter--I will have mine
ready. Good-by." She stopped and glanced at the trail. "And you say that
if that man had kept on, the snake would have bitten him?"

"Sure pop!--if he'd trod on him--as he was sure to. The snake wouldn't
have known he didn't mean it. It's only natural," continued Leonidas,
with glowing partisanship for the gentle and absent William Henry. "YOU
wouldn't like to be trodden upon, Mrs. Burroughs!"

"No! I'd strike out!" she said quickly. She made a rapid motion forward
with her low forehe