“Not much—I can’t stand the brutes,” Jim answered. “I killed those two and then went hunting among the rubbish—and do you know, it was simply alive with snakes! The flood had brought them, I suppose, and the warm sun had encouraged them to come out; anyhow, there they were, and a nice job we had getting rid of them. I killed eight or ten more, and then it struck me that the occupation was likely to last some time, so I went home to lunch, and brought the men out afterwards. We had to turn over every bit of that rubbish with forks—it was too damp to burn—and I forget how many snakes we got altogether, but it was enough to stock a menagerie a good many times over. Beastly game—we all saw snakes for a week after it was finished, and I dreamed of them every night.”
“I should think you did,” Wally said, with sympathy. “Did any one get bitten?”
“No—they were all pretty small and very sleepy. I daresay they thought it was a little rough on them; after all, they hadn’t asked to be brought from their happy homes and dumped out on the plain. But a snake’s a snake,” finished Jim, emphatically. “It doesn’t pay you to show mercy to one because he’s small.”
“It does not; he grows up, and bites you,” said Wally, grimly, referring to a painful episode in his own career.
“Indeed, he doesn’t always wait until he grows up,” Norah put in. “Even a baby tiger-snake can be venomous enough to be unpleasant. I don’t know why snakes exist at all; they say everything has its uses, but I never can see what use there is in the snake tribe.”
“Neither can I—unpleasant brutes!” Wally agreed. “You get used to them, but you never learn to love them—unless you’re a freak. I knew an old swagman in Queensland who made pets of them, though. He had a collection of about a dozen, which he said were poisonous, but I believe, myself, he’d taken out their fangs.”
“If he hadn’t, it’s the sort of thing nobody waits to prove,” Jim said. “You have to investigate a snake pretty closely before you find out if he has fangs or not; and if he has, the enquiry is apt to be unhealthy for you.”
“That’s so,” agreed Wally. “No one ever waited to investigate old Moriarty’s serpents. He made them pay very well; he would run up a good big bill at a hotel, and borrow as much money as he could from men who were there, drinking; and then he would pull out his snakes in a casual way in a crowded bar-room. Well, it used to work like a charm—most men can tackle a snake or two in a room, but when it comes to seeing a dozen squirming in different ways, people are likely to get rattled. Old Moriarty could clear out a room in quicker time than any fire-alarm. The bar-lady, if she didn’t escape with the first rush, would faint, or have a ladylike fit of hysterics; and by the time anyone collected enough presence of mind to return, Moriarty would be far away, generally helping himself to a couple of bottles of whisky as he went.”
“Horrid old pig!” was Norah’s comment.
“He wasn’t a nice man,” Wally agreed. “Still I suppose you might call him a genius in his own particular line. Anyway, he travelled all over Southern Queensland, leaving behind him a trail of memories of serpents and missing cash.”