“I wouldn’t touch that damn snake,” he said earnestly, “for eleven million dollars.”
At this profanity the rattlesnake started another paroxysm of struggling, while his rattle sounded like an alarm-clock. When he stopped to rest, the Ornithologist raised his price to an even billion—in gold. It was evident that I was the white man’s hope. It would never do to let two members of a conquered race see a pale-face falter. Remembering Deerslayer at the stake, Daniel Boone, and sundry other brave white men without a cross, I set my teeth, gripped the rough, cold, scaly body just back of the crotched stick, and lifted. The great snake’s black, fixed, devilish eyes looked into mine. If, in this world, there are peep-holes into hell, they are found in the eyes of an enraged rattlesnake. As he came clear of the ground, he coiled round my arm to the elbow, so that the rattles sounded not a foot from my ear. Although the rattlesnake is not a constrictor, and there was no real danger, yet under the touch of his body my arm quivered like a tuning-fork.
“What makes your arm shake so?” queried Jim, watching me critically.
“It’s probably rheumatism,” I assured him.
Suddenly, under my grip, the snake’s mouth opened, showing on either side of the upper jaw ridges of white gum. From these suddenly flashed the movable fangs which are always folded back until ready for use. They were hollow and of a glistening white. Halfway down on the side of each was a tiny hole, from which the yellow venom slowly oozed. I began tremulously to unwind my unwelcome armlet, while Tin waited with the open bag.
“Be sure you take your hand away quick after you drop him in,” advised Jim.
“Don’t you worry about that,” I replied; “no man will ever get his hand away quicker than I’m going to.”
THE KING OF THE FOREST—THE BANDED RATTLESNAKE
Whereupon I unwound the rattling coils from my arm, and then broke all speed records in removing my hand from the neighborhood of that snake. This was my first introduction to the King of the Dark Places, the grim timber rattlesnake, the handsomest of all the thirteen varieties found within the United States.