“A snake, sir!” answered the cadet glibly. “Ugh! He ran right between my legs!” And Paxton pretended to shiver.
“A snake!” cried several.
“Where is it?”
“Why didn’t you kill it?”
“Yes, a snake, and—and I guess it was a rattler, too. It was about that long,” and Nick Paxton held his hands as far apart as possible. “I couldn’t kill it for I didn’t have a thing in my hand. I—er—I looked for a rock, but the snake was too quick for me.”
The news that a snake was around—and that it might be a rattlesnake at that—alarmed many of the cadets, and some of them recrossed the brook to the open pasture. But others, and Captain Putnam, began a hunt for the reptile, but, of course, without success.
“We may as well give up the search,” said the master of the Hall, after a hunt of ten minutes. “If it was a rattlesnake it has managed to get away.”
“What was you doing here, Paxton?” asked Andy.
“Why I—er—I came over to look for—er—for ferns,” stammered the youth who had played the trick.
“Ferns? Didn’t know you were interested in ferns,” observed Joe Nelson, who was something of a collector of plants himself.