"This is too much for me!" gasped Paul, and lost no time in limping to a distance.
"Take that!" yelled Frank, and struck at another snake with a pole he had picked up.
"There you are," came from Lanky, and he quickly dispatched three small snakes squirming from between some rocks. He had hardly done this when he gave a mad yell as another snake wound itself around his ankle.
Crack! It was the report of Lige Smith's pistol. He had aimed at the snake's head. His aim was true and the reptile dropped to the ground and went whipping out of sight in the bushes.
"Gosh, but that was a narrow escape," murmured Lanky, his face growing pale.
"I'll say so," was the reply. "But come on, there are more snakes over yonder."
The work of fighting the reptiles went on, and when the big ones had been settled even Paul took a hand in cleaning out what remained.
"Say, Frank, did you see me get a crack at that corking big one?" Lanky exclaimed, beaming with excitement and the knowledge that he was gradually overcoming his excessive fear of the entire snake family.
"It may be the granddaddy of the whole bunch," Frank told him, "and, as like as not, the very one that struck at your mother."
"I'm believing in that way, anyhow," affirmed the tall boy. "And now for getting his rattle box."