“You seem to know all about it,” gibed Ace. “They had 13 species of rattlesnakes down in this—it used to be a saloon. And ten of them Western. They had a huge seven foot diamond back, and they had yellow ones and gray ones and black ones and some that were almost pink. I mean, they had their skins. All colors––”
“To match their habitat,” supplemented Norris. “Our California rattler is a gray or pale brown where it’s dry summers, and in the Oregon woods where it’s moist, and the foliage deeper colored, it’s green-black all but the spots. I’ve seen them tamed. There was one guide up there who kept one in a cage, and it would take a mouse from his fingers.”
“I wouldn’t chance it,” shivered Ted.
“Oh, this one would glide up flat on the floor of the cage. They can’t strike unless they’re coiled.”
“I suppose he caught it before it was old enough to be poison,” said Pedro.
“A rattlesnake can strike from the moment it’s born. It’s perfectly independent a few hours after birth.”
“Ugh! Bet I dream of them now.” But such was their healthy out-of-door fatigue that they all slept like logs.
It was only the next day, however, that the two boys, Ace and Ted, poking exploratively into a deep cleft in a rock ledge, were startled by an abrupt, ominous rattle, and beheld in their path the symmetrical coils of the sinister one. The inflated neck was arched from the center of the coil and the heart-shaped head, with red tongue out-thrust, waved slowly as the upthrust tail vibrated angrily. A flash of that swift head would inject the deadly virus into the leg of one of the intruders. Yet Ted knew the reptile would never advance to the attack.
Dragging Ace back with him, he instantly placed at least six feet between them, so that, should the snake charge, it could not reach them. But with the enemy obviously on the retreat, the snake glided to cover in a tumbled mass of rocks at one side.
“Gee! We nearly stepped on him!” the ranch boy exclaimed, with a voice that was not quite steady. “Next time we go poking into a place like that, let’s poke in a stick first, or throw a stone, to make sure there’s ‘nobody home.’”