“Snakes!”
The result was such as Susie had not anticipated.
With a shriek which was womanish in its shrillness, Smith sprang to his feet, all but upsetting the lamp in his violence. Unmixed horror was written upon his face.
The girl herself shrank back at what she had done; then, holding out several rattles for inspection, she said:
“Looks like you don’t care for snakes.”
“You—you little——”
Only Susie guessed the unspeakable epithet he meant to use. Her eyes warned him, and, too, he remembered Dora in time. He said instead, with a slight laugh of confusion:
“Snakes scares me, and rat-traps goin’ off.”
The color had not yet returned to his face when a knock came upon the door.
In response to Susie’s call, a tall stranger stepped inside—a stranger wide of shoulder, and with a kind of grim strength in his young face.