“Waal, ye will! They ain’t so pow’ful plentiful, but once in a while ye ketch sight o’ one. Me an’ me friend, after we seen the finish o’ the rascals, we went back to see what mischief they’d been up to, and then, all o’ a sudden, my friend sez, sez he, ‘Look a-there, Sam, I reckon that’s what skeered them durned thieves!’
“I looked where he wuz pintin’ an’ I see them terr’ble glarin’ eyes. I tell ye, lads, they made my hair jest raise itself right up on my head, an’ I hadn’t no guilty conscience, nuther! Wall, quick as a flash my friend, he up with his rifle an’ popped that there pesky crittur right through the eyes!”
Just then a menacing rattle came from one corner of the cabin that made the boys jump from their seats in alarm.
“Don’t be skeered!” Old Sam chuckled. “That there is one o’ my rattlers as is waitin’ fur the man to come an’ take ’em to the museem. If ye like, I’ll show ye my c’lection.”
On the boys expressing an earnest desire to see the collection, Old Sam led the way to a couple of glass-covered boxes that stood in a corner of the cabin. In each box were two snakes; in one two rattlers were writhing and twisting, and in the other two unusually large and beautifully marked copperheads were lodged.
As the boys pressed forward eagerly to examine them, one of the rattlesnakes coiled itself and gave forth an ominous warning. Instinctively the boys drew back with a shudder of repulsion.
“They’re awfully treacherous creatures—those snakes!” Bob remarked.
“Wall, yes, they be!” Old Sam drawled, “but they has one thing to recommend ’em, anyway. They always gives warnin’ afore they strikes, so ye kin get out o’ the way.”
“That’s so,” Ben agreed, then added, “Haven’t you ever been bitten, Sam?”
“Not yet,” he replied. “Come pretty nigh it, sometimes, though. Many a time I’ve found the critters hangin’ on to my boots. I had a cat once what used to ketch a pow’ful lot o’ snakes fur me. He could do it a durned sight better’n I could myself!”