“I carefully examined that so as to get some information about him.”
“Of course,” said Griggs. “Nothing more inside the sarpent, is there, Squire Chris?”
“No,” replied the boy, after running his hand along the soft skin until it touched Ned’s. “It’s all stuffed full of something of this last part to keep the gold from getting any further.”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Ned; “so as to keep the gold in the middle, and leave the ends soft to tie together.”
“It doesn’t quite feel like that,” said Chris thoughtfully. “If that had been meant, why wasn’t there a sort of soft roll of something at the head end? I say, father, there is something like a roll.”
“Draw it out then, my boy,” was the reply.
“It won’t come,” said Chris. “We shall have to slit the skin here.”
“Nay, skin it out as if it were a bit of the rattler’s body left in. Pull the mouth open over the neck. No, no; not like that. Draw it open a bit. That’s the way. Now you’ll do it, my lad.”
Chris jumped at the American’s hints, and acting upon them, found that the task was comparatively easy, and in a few minutes a little roll of soft cream-coloured leather, about an inch in diameter and eight or nine long, carefully wound round with what looked like fine twine, but proved to be a remarkably fine kind of animal integument, lay upon the table.
“Leather of some kind—I mean, soft skin,” said Griggs, bending over the little roll as it lay before them. “Say, doctor, I’m beginning to think you’ve got the bearings after all. You must use your knife this time.”