length upon a branching limb of the same bush, and on a level
with the nest, was a second serpent, its head raised slightly, but
motionless, awaiting, it seemed, its opportunity to seize another of
the tender brood. The parent birds flew about in converging circles in
their strait, clamoring piteously and approaching dangerously near to
the jaws of their repulsive enemies. The boy but stood and screamed.
They were the greatest black-snakes he had ever seen. Then, all at
once, he became another creature. His childish voice changed in its
key, and, club in hand, screaming still louder, he ran right at the
bush. At the same moment his frightened mother came running down the
pathway, screaming also.

As the boy leaped downward, both snakes, with wonderful swiftness,
dropped to the ground and darted across the open space of a few yards,
toward the creek. Side by side, with crests erect, they glided, and
one of them still held between his jaws the unfortunate young sparrow.
The boy did not hesitate a moment. Still making a great noise, but
hoarsely for a creature of his age, he ran to head them off and barely
passed them as they touched the water. He leaped in ahead of them and
they were beside him in an instant. The water was up to his waist. He
plunged deeper recklessly. With a cry of rage he struck at the serpent
with the bird, and struck and struck again, blindly, still giving
utterance to that odd sound, and with the fury of a young demon. The
woman had reached the bank and stood, unknowing what to do, shrieking
in maternal terror, while across the clearing a man was running. And
then a fierce chance blow, delivered with all the strength of the
maddened boy, alighted fairly, just below the head of the snake
carrying away the bird, and in a second it was done for, floating,
writhing down the stream with a broken neck, and its tiny prey loosened
and drifting away beside it.

The mother gasped in relief, but only for a moment. The boy cast one
glance at the floating reptile and the bird, and only one, then turned
to the other serpent. It had almost reached the shore, and between
that and the covert it might attain was a stretch of shrubless ground.
Already its black length was defined on the short grass when the boy
rushed from the water with uplifted club, just as his father came in
full view of the scene from the other side. With cries like those of
some young wild beast, the child ran at the snake, rain