"I'll have him in a jiffy," said my brother.
As he spoke I happened to be watching the schoolmarm. Her face was painfully white, but her eyes were shining, and her lips set above a small, resolute chin.
"Let me kill him," she said, in a low voice.
"You, Miss Buchanan?"
"Yes."
"It's easy enough, but one mustn't--er--miss."
"I shan't miss."
She took the willow stick from my brother's hand. Every movement of his she reproduced exactly, even to the setting of her heel upon the serpent's head. Then she smiled at us apologetically.
"I hated to do it. I was scared to death, but I wanted to conquer that cowardly Belle. It's just as you say, they're killed mighty easy. If we could kill the Old Serpent as easy----" she sighed, not finishing the sentence.
Ajax, who has a trick of saying what others think, blurted out--