“Good-night!” murmured Neale.
Just then the snake—and it was a big fellow, all of six feet long—seemed to awaken. Perhaps it had been chilled by the coolness of the night before; it was lethargic, at any rate.
It lifted its head, whirled into the very middle of the road, and faced the automobile defiantly. In a moment it had coiled and sprung its rattle. The whirring sound, once heard, is never to be mistaken for any other.
“Oh, dear! what shall we do?” gasped Agnes. “If you try to run over it, it may get into the car—or something,” said Ruth.
The roadway was narrower here than it had been back where the brown pony had held the party up. This first trip in their automobile seemed to be fraught with much adventure for the Corner House girls and Neale O’Neil.
CHAPTER IV—SALERATUS JOE
Neale O’Neil knew very well that he could not satisfy everybody—least of all the rattlesnake.
Mrs. Heard did not want her S.P.C.A. sensibilities hurt; Agnes wanted him to drive on; Ruth wished him to dodge the coiled rattler. As for getting out and “coaxing it to move on” with a stick, Neale had no such intention.
He tried starting slowly to see if the serpent would be frightened and open the way for the passage of the car. But the rattler instantly coiled and sprang twice at the hood. The second time it sank its fangs into the left front tire.
“Cricky!” gasped Neale. “They say you swell all up when one of those things injects poison into you; but I don’t believe that tire will swell any more than it is.”