e spiders, however; he cared very
little for the spiders. His eyes were upon the ground all the time,
moving along the borders of his little knoll-fort. It was bounded on two
sides by pools, in whose dark depths he knew moccasins were awake,
watching the light, too, with whatever of curiosity belongs to a snake's
cold brain. His torches aroused them; and yet darkness would have been
worse. In the light he could at least see them, if they glided forth and
tried to ascend the brilliant knoll. After a while they began to rise to
the surface; he could distinguish portions of their bodies in waving
lines, moving noiselessly hither and thither, appearing and disappearing
suddenly, until the pools around seemed alive with them. There was not a
sound; the soaked forest stood motionless. The absolute stillness made
the quick gliding motions of the moccasins even more horrible. Yet Deal
had no instinctive dread of snakes. The terrible "coach-whip," the
deadly and grotesque spread-adder, the rattlesnake of the barrens, and
these great moccasins of the pools were endowed with no imaginary
horrors in his eyes. He accepted them as nature made them, and not as
man's fancy painted them; it was only their poison-fangs he feared.

"If the sea-crab could sting, how hideous we should think him! If the
lobster had a deadly venom, how devilish his shape would seem to us!" he
said.

But now no imagination was required to make the moccasins terrible. His
revolver carried six balls; and he had already used one of them. Four
hours must pass before dawn; there could be no unnecessary shooting. The
creatures might even come out and move along the edge of his knoll; only
when they showed an intention of coming up the slope must their gliding
life be ended. The moccasin is not a timorous or quick-nerved snake; in
a place like the South Devil, when a human foot or boat approaches,
generally he does not stir. His great body, sometimes over six feet in
length, and thick and fat in the middle, lies on a log or at the edge of
a pool, seemingly too lazy to move. But none the less, when roused, is
his coil sudden and his long spring sure; his venom is deadly. After a
time one of the creatures did come out and glide along the edge of the
knoll. He went back into the water; but a second came out on the other
side. During the night Deal killed three; he was an excellent marksman,
and picked them off easily as they crossed his dead-line.

"Fortunately they c