VI
But the adventure of her walk had not come to an end yet.
The path widened into a grass-grown road. The day was so hot she regretted she hadn't brought her sunshade, but she walked with light buoyant steps, unreflecting,—amused by the antics of two blue, belated butterflies who, not perished with the summer, convinced it had come back a little, danced ahead of her chasing the shadows; they fluttered to the right and to the left, and came at last to rest upon a withered mullen stalk a few yards in advance of her. Ruth watched them while they sought greedily, making a rapid tour of the dried stem, for some lone flower upon which to replenish their hungry attenuated little stomachs. She almost held her breath, as she paused to watch the quest and she wished she might, by a wave of her stick, restore fresh succulence to the weeds, when—
“Halt, stop!” cried a voice.
Instinctively, Ruth shrank back.
“There's a snake ahead of you—there—just across the path. Don't move!” cried the voice.
Miss Adgate stood perfectly still. She saw a man run by her; she heard the sharp report of a gun. The smell of gunpowder filled her nostrils and the terror of the sudden cry made her feel sick.
“There he is!” cried the owner of the voice.
An excited young man presented upon the muzzle of his gun a viscous two feet of snake, an object that limply resembled the straight, flat limb of a tree. “A copperhead. 'Tis the only deadly dangerous beast in these harmless woods. As I'm alive, if you had put your foot on him you would, indeed, have found him deadly.”
He extended the flabby thing for Ruth's inspection, but the young lady looked away—her arm instinctively went out to clutch at something.