“Oh, yes, that’s right,” Paul went on. “I’d forgotten that the copperheads aren’t poisonous this time of year. You wouldn’t have been much damaged, Cora, if you had been nipped by this fellow,” and with a swift motion of his foot he kicked the still writhing reptile to one side.
“Really?” she asked.
“Really.”
She looked relieved. The faint spell passed and Cora smiled. The color was coming back to her cheeks.
“I’m sorry I acted so,” she said, “but I have a terrible fear of snakes, even harmless ones. I thought this one was a curiously mottled root, and I was going to pick it up. Suppose I had? Oh!”
She shuddered and looked at Paul.
“A miss is as good as a bird in the hand,” he misquoted. “Come on now, let’s eat.”
“Say, old man,” said Jack to Paul, when they were alone a little later, “that snake was a bad chap, wasn’t he?”
Paul nodded in confirmation.
“I thought so,” Jack went on. “Just as well, though, not to let her know, she’s so deadly afraid. There’d have been trouble if she had been bitten?” he questioned.