cy! he is alive yet!" she shrieked, as writhing
and convulsed, the rattlesnake drew his glittering folds out from
beneath the stone, and wound himself up, coil after coil, more venomous
than ever.

"Step behind me--behind me, Lina," cried the young man attempting to
force her away.

But she threw her arms around him, and with her eyes turned back upon
the glittering horror, strove with all her frail strength to push him
backward out of danger.

The brave generosity of this attempt might have destroyed them both;
but, just as the rattlesnake was prepared to lance out again, Ben, who
had torn a branch from an ash tree overhead, rushed fearlessly down and
struck at him with the host of light twigs that were yet covered with
delicate maize-colored leaves.

This act increased Lina's terror, for the blows which Ben gave were so
light that a baby would have laughed at them.

"Don't be skeer'd, nor nothing," shouted Ben, gently belaboring his
enemy with the ash bough, "I've got the pizen sarpent under, just look
this way and you'll find him tame as a rabbit. Lord! how the critter
does hate the smell of ash leaves! Now do look, Miss Lina!"

Lina clung trembling to Ralph, but turned her eyes with breathless dread
toward the rattlesnake.

"Come close by--just get a look at him--the stiffening is out of his
back-bone now, I tell you!" cried Ben, triumphantly. "See him a trying
to poke his head under the moss just at the sight of a yaller ash
leaf--ain't he a coward, now ain't he?"

"What is it--what does it mean?" inquired Ralph, reassured now that Lina
was out of danger--"did the stone wound him?"

"The stone!" repeated Ben scornfully,--"a round stone covered over with
moss like a pin cushion! Why, if this ere rattlesnake could laugh as
well as bite, he'd have a good haw-haw over Miss Lina's way of fighting
snakes. It takes something to kill them, I tell you. But I've got
him--he knows me. Look at him now!"

Ralph moved a step forward and looked down upon the rattlesnake, towards
which Ben was pointing with his ash branch, as unconcerned as if it had
been an earth-worm.

The rattlesnake had loosened all his folds, and lay prone upon his back
striving to burrow his head beneath the leaves and moss, evidently
without power to escape or show fight.

"Wonderful, isn't it!" said Ben, eyeing the snake with grim complacency;
"now I should just like to know what there is in the natur of this ere
ash limb that wilts his piz