“Why all the precautions?” Dora asked gaily, but Mary knew.
“Rattlesnakes may be abroad.” She shuddered. “Have you seen one yet this summer, Jerry?”
“Yes, this morning, and a mighty ugly one too; coiled up asleep in the chicken yard. I shot it, all right, but didn’t kill it. Before I could fire again, it had crawled under the old barn.”
“Oh-oo gracious! That’s where we’re going, isn’t it?” Dora peered into the darkness on either side of the path.
“I suppose it had a mate equally big and ugly under the barn?” Mary’s statement was also a question.
Dick replied, “Undoubtedly, but if they stay under the barn and don’t try to climb up to the loft, they won’t trouble us any.”
Mary, glancing up at the sky that was like soft, dark blue velvet studded with luminous stars, exclaimed, “How wonderfully clear the air is, and how still. You never would dream that a sand storm had—”
She stopped suddenly, for Dora had gripped her arm from the back. “Listen! Didn’t you hear a—”
“Gun shot?” Dick supplied gaily. “Now that we’re about to open up Little Bodil’s box, I certainly expect to hear one. You know we heard a gun fired, or thought we did, when we passed through the gate in front of Lucky Loon’s rock house, and again when old Silas Harvey was telling us the story. Was that what you thought you heard, Dora?”
“No, it was not,” that maiden replied indignantly. “I thought I heard a rattle.” She had stopped still in the path to listen, but, as Jerry and Mary had continued walking toward the old barn, Dora decided that she had been mistaken and skipped along to catch up. Dick, sorry that he had teased her, evidently at an inopportune time, ran after her with the lantern. “Please forgive me,” he pleaded, “and don’t rush along that way where the path is dark.”