"Let me shoot it, Walt," pleaded Charley, anxiously, "they're awfully dangerous."
"Aye, lad," seconded the captain, who, with Chris, had reached the spot, "better let him shoot it, those things are too dangerous to take chances with."
But Walter's obstinacy was roused. "Keep back, I'll fix him," he declared confidently. "I'm going to have that skin and that $25.00."
Breaking off a dead bough from a scrub oak he approached the snake cautiously while the rest sat in their saddles silently anxious, and Charley edged his restive pony a little closer to the repulsive reptile.
Slowly Walter moved forward, his gaze fixed intently upon the slowly waving head before him with its glistening little diamond eyes. Nearer and nearer he crept till only a few feet separated him from that venomous head with its malignant unwinking eyes.
"Strike, boy, strike, you're getting too close," shouted the captain.
"Oh, golly," shrieked Chris, "look at him, look at him."
Walter had stopped as though frozen in his tracks. His face had gone deathly pale, and great drops of sweat stood on his forehead. The hand that held the stick unclasped, and it rattled unheeded to the ground.
"He's charmed," cried the captain.
"Jump to one side, Walt, jump," Charley shouted, "for God's sake, jump. It's going to strike."