and begun to creep away with a
low, strange rattling noise, was struck about the middle of its back,
and now lay writhing miserably amidst the stones.

"I don't like killing things without they're good to eat," said Joses,
picking up another stone, and seeking for an opportunity to crush the
serpent's head--"Ah, don't go too near, boy; he could sting as bad as
ever if he got a chance!"

"I don't think he'd bite now," said Bart.

"Ah, wouldn't he! Don't you try him, my boy. They're the viciousest
things as ever was made. And, as I was saying, I don't--there, that's
about done for him," he muttered, as he dropped the piece of rock he
held right upon the rattlesnake's head, crushing it, and then taking
hold of the tail, and drawing the reptile out to its full length--"as I
was a-saying, Master Bart, I don't like killing things as arn't good to
eat; but if you'll put all the rattlesnakes' heads together ready for
me, I'll drop stones on 'em till they're quite dead."

"What a fine one, Joses!" said Bart, gazing curiously at the venomous
beast.

"Six foot six and a half," said Joses, scanning the serpent. "That's
his length to an 'alf inch."

"Is it? Well, come along; we are wasting time, but do you think
rattlesnakes are as dangerous as people say?"

"Dangerous! I should think they are," replied Joses, as he shouldered
his rifle; and they tramped rapidly on to make up for the minutes lost
in killing the reptile. "You'd say so, too, if you was ever bit by one.
I was once."

"You were?"

"I just was, my lad, through a hole in my leggings; and I never could
understand how it was that that long, thin, twining, scaly beggar should
have enough brains in her little flat head to know that it was the
surest place to touch me right through that hole."

"It was strange," said Bart. "How was it?"

"Well, that's what I never could quite tell, Master Bart, for that bite,
and what came after, seemed to make me quite silly like, and as if it
took all the memory out of me. All I can recollect about it is that I
was with--let me see! who was it? Ah! I remember now: our Sam; and
we'd sat down one hot day on the side of a bit of a hill, just to rest
and have one smoke. Then we got up to go, and, though we ought to have
been aware of it, we warn't, there was plenty of snakes about I was just
saying to Sam, as we saw one gliding away, that I didn't believe as they
could sting as people said they could, when I suppose I