“‘You’re the doctor,’ says Jack.
“Well, we gathers up the biggest and the straightest and loads ’em in. We find we don’t have to dig post-holes. I’d stand one of the critters on his tail, and Jack would drive him in the ground with a twelve-pound sledge-hammer. We stapled on the wire, and told the boss to come out and inspect the job.
“‘Boys,’ he says, ‘you do have a brain, leastways one between you. You saved at least a week’s work. I’ll let you go to Kansas City when we ship again.’”
“Was the fence permanent?” asked Lanky.
“It was till spring,” said Red. “You see, when spring come, them reptiles jist naturally thawed out and come to, and crawled off with a whole mile of wire. Good six-wire fence we had made, too—hog-tight, horse-high, and bull-strong.”
“Is it true,” asked Lanky, “that rattlesnakes and king snakes are natural enemies and fight each other?”
“I don’t know about that,” said Joe, “but I’ll tell what I seen once. Strange thing it was too. I come upon a king snake and a rattlesnake one time fightin’ for dear life. Each one would grab the other and then stick his head under his belly for protection. Finally, jest at the same time, they nabbed each other by the tail and begun swallering. There they was, jest like a ring; and they swallered and swallered, and the ring got littler and littler. Jest then I heard a panther yell, and I looked up jest a minute—jest a fraction—and when I looked again, damn me, if them snakes wasn’t gone. I looked for ’em I reckon an hour, and it was right out on the open prairie where there wasn’t any holes or rocks, and I never could find them critters.”
“I feels somethin’ tappin’ me on the leg.”
“Now, most rattlers,” said Red, “is jist like bad men. They’re jist naturally mean and will bite you when you ain’t lookin’, no matter how kind you are to them. You’ll find one onct in a while, however, that’s a purty decent sort of chap. I recollect one in particular which was a gentlemanly critter.”