"Did you ever hear of such colossal nerve as those snakes showed in locatin' so close to human beings and actually fixing up a vipers' nest?" burst out Lige. "Boys, I take it that looks like a deadly insult. Reckon as how we ain't no use around these diggings, since the ole barn's a goner. Let's get busy and clean out that snake hole."
Nothing could please the punchers better, and there was an immediate scurrying around for poles and anything else that was likely to prove useful in bringing destruction to the "owdacious rattler crowd," as Jerry Brime remarked.
Of course, all three boys went along with the crowd to see how the extermination of the prairie rattlesnakes progressed. Lanky smothered his abject dislike and vowed he would be the death of that big reptile because of which his mother had just passed through such suffering.
"I'd like to say I'd given one of the wrigglers a stiff crack on the head so's to break his scaly neck," he confided to Paul, who limped along, bent on seeing all the fun there was to see.
"And you could get the rattles to show when you tell the yarn," suggested Paul. "I've got three of the same at home—used to hunt snakes every spring, just to know there was one less poisonous creature laid out stiff."
The crowd were soon on the spot. They found that the nest of snakes was not a creature of the imagination. Several "bouncers," as Lanky called them, set up a droning buzz as the party approached, and being quickly located were attacked with the poles and pistols.
Frank and Lanky were in the midst of the fray. A big rattler came for Frank, but he caught the reptile in the head with a rock.
"Look out!" yelled Lanky suddenly.
Frank whirled around, to see a medium-sized snake in the act of dropping from a bush just behind him. He flung another rock and at the same instant Lanky hit the snake with a club he carried.
"On your guard, boys!" yelled one of the cowboys. "We're in a nest of 'em."