“What!” cried Chris. “Not about snakes?”
“But I did, my lad; and I kept on waking up and then going to sleep and dreaming the same thing again. I never saw such big ones alive as I saw creeping along the bottom of that great square hole, getting into the corners and squirming up one till they nearly stood upon their tails, and then fell over sidewise with a crack that sent the dust flying.”
“Horrid!” said Chris.
“Yes. They’re not nice things to dream about—snakes—because of the waking up.”
“Yes, I know,” cried Chris eagerly. “You fancy that you really have them about you, and feel as if you can’t believe it was only a dream.”
“You never felt like that?” cried Griggs.
“Yes, I have, more than once.”
“Well, that’s strange, because it’s just how I felt over and over again last night, and it quite set me against the job.”
“But now it is morning and we’re all awake and rested you don’t think it’s likely that there are any rattlers down in that hole?”
“I do think it’s very likely, my lad,” said the American gravely. “Give one a rocky place out in the desert where the hot sun shines, and there’s no one to interfere with them, and you’re pretty sure to find some of those gentlemen. I wonder we haven’t seen more.”