The rain began to slacken in an hour, while the wind gradually dwindled
to a light breeze.
Still there was no chance to lie down, and the boy was growing sleepy.
He had drooped his head between his knees as he sat on a pine block,
and was dropping into a doze when he heard something stirring at the
back of the shanty. He looked around in a drowsy way, but seeing
nothing, he again fell into an uneasy slumber.
How long his nap lasted he did not know, but all at once he nodded
violently and awoke. The fire was low. Then a muffled rattling noise
at his feet sent the blood in a furious leap to his pulses.
He threw on a rich knot, and as it blazed up his eye fell on an object
that caused him to spring up as if he had been stung.
"Great Caesar!" he exclaimed, and as the rattle sounded once more, he
made a long leap for the doorway. "That was a narrow escape. S'pose I
hadn't a woke up?"
Then he shuddered, but recovering, hunted up a cudgel and cautiously
returned within the hut.
There, within a few inches of where the lad's feet had rested as he
slept, was a large rattlesnake still in its coil and giving forth its
ominous rattle. A dexterous blow or two finished the reptile, but the
odor given forth by the creature in its anger filled the hut.
"Pah!" ejaculated Ralph. "I must get out of here. The place would
sicken a dog."
He returned to the open air, now freshened by the vanished rain, and
round to his delight, that a moon several days old was visible in the
west.
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