“He has–has all sorts of nerve,” agreed Pemrose readily, glancing sideways after the boy whose courage she knew to be as high as his colors.
“The Scoutmaster wouldn’t hear of our venturing in so far as to investigate that running water, anyhow,” said Studley. “My eye! What’s the rumpus now–the kettle o’ fish?”
It was a shriek from one girl–half-a-dozen girls. It was a loud hiss, almost a whistle, from some pallid vegetation near the lake-edge. It was a black snake rearing a blue-black head and glittering eye within three feet of Una Grosvenor, novice among Camp Fire Girls, whose scream tore at the very stones of Tory Cave until they cried out in echo.
It was a dozen green-clad girls scattering wildly this way and that, olive-green aspen leaves tossing in a whirlwind, shuffling from pillar to post–from rock to darkling rock.
It was–it was a powerful reptile form, in armor of jetty scales, trailing its six-foot length away, the noise of its mighty tail-blows against the earth and flying pebbles calling all the Dumps–the Doleful Dumps–out of the dens where they hid here, making them take strange and shadowy shapes, gigantic shapes, of threat.
“Let me get out! Oh-h! I want to get out, away–anywhere!” shuddered Una. “This is no-o fun.”
“Yes! it is–once you get used to it,” laughed Pemrose, who–together with the Jack at a Pinch still hovering near–liked her excitement warm. “Look–look at him crimp himself along! Ever–ever see anything so crooked?” as the great muscle in the reptile’s body contracted and relaxed upon its hasty retreat. “When we girls had our War Garden, a year ago, an old farmer said we planted our potato rows so straight that he ‘vummed ’twould make a black snake seasick to cross from one to the other.’”
“Ha! Because he just naturally has to go ajee!” laughed her scout knight, estimating the length of that scaly corkscrew, if uncoiled, with his eye. “Pshaw! I’ve tamed ’em–and killed ’em, too,” he added.
“Yes! a black snake wouldn’t harm you, even if he did bite.” Pem was still reassuring her friend. “Did you hear him whistle?... But–but what’s that?” It was just half a minute later that she put the question. “He isn’t making that noise with his tail still; is he?”
She looked at Stud. Under the ruby eye of the lamp his face–the face of a Stoutheart–had turned suddenly pea-green.