“Ah, you may grin, but it’s a nasty habit, I think, that of rubbing grease turned into what you call soap all over your skin. Look yonder on that patch of sand,” he continued, pointing, for his keen eyes seemed to miss nothing.
“Snakes!” cried Chris, bringing his rifle sharply round.
“Nay, nay, don’t shoot. What’s the good? You might scare something better.”
“Better!” said Ned, with his upper lip curling up and the corners of his mouth going down.
“Yes; I don’t care about snake,” said the American dryly, “but I hev heard that some of the Injuns cut the rattlers’ heads off and roast them in wood-ashes, and that they’re uncommonly good.”
“Ugh!” ejaculated Ned.
“Yes, that’s just how I feel, my lad,” continued Griggs, in his calm, dry manner. “I’m like that countryman of mine who was hard up for tuck, out in the backwoods, and when some one asked him afterwards how he managed to live, he said he shot and cooked the crows.”
“Horrid!” cried Ned.
“Yes, that’s what t’other one said; and then he says, ‘But surely you don’t like crows?’ ‘No,’ says the first one, ‘I don’t kind o’ hanker arter them.’ It’s the same here, I don’t kind o’ hanker arter snake; but it’s all a matter o’ habit.”
“Oh, ugh!” cried Ned.