"I don't generally kill innocent snakes," I ventured again, a little inopportunely, it must be confessed.
"Well, I do," said the preacher. "The very sight of a snake stirs my hatred to its depths."
After that it was natural to inquire whether he often saw rattlesnakes hereabouts. (The driver who brought me up the mountain had said that they were not common, but that I "wanted to look out sharp for them in the woods.") My companion had never seen one, he answered, but his wife had once killed one in their dooryard. Then, by way of cooling off, after the fervor of the conflict, he told me about a gentleman and his little boy, who, having come to spend a vacation on the Ridge, started out in the morning for a stroll. They were quickly back again, and the boy, quite out of breath, came running into the garden.
"Oh, Mr. M.," he cried, "we saw a rattlesnake, and papa fired off his pistol!"
"A rattlesnake! Where is it? What did it look like?"
"Why, we didn't see it, but we heard it."
"What was the noise like?" asked Mr. M., and he took a pencil from his pocket and began tapping on a log.
"That's it!" said the boy, "that's it!"
They had heard a woodpecker drilling for grubs,—or drumming for love,—whereupon the man had fired his pistol, and for them there was no more walking in the woods.