need the strap, but I was afraid to mention it.

I confess I was unhappy. I imagined a pathetic picture of a little
innocent creature turning its pleading eyes up to the captor who with
keen sheath-knife would let slip the crimson tide. I had no wish to go
racing through the brush after those timid victims.

[Illustration: "I do not like to come upon snakes in that manner."]

I did, however. The island was long and narrow. We scattered out across
it in a thin line of battle, and starting at one end swept down the
length of it with a conquering front. That sounds well, but it fails to
express what we did. We did not sweep, and we did not have any front to
speak of. The place was a perfect tangle and chaos of logs, bushes,
vines, pits, ledges and fallen trees. To beat up that covert was a hot,
scratchy, discouraging job, attended with frequent escapes from accident
and damage. I was satisfied I had the worst place in the line, for I
couldn't keep up with the others, and I tried harder to do that than I
did to find the little mooses. I didn't get sight of the others after we
started. Neither did I catch a glimpse of those little day-old calves,
or of anything else except a snake, which I came upon rather suddenly
when I was down on my hands and knees, creeping under a fallen tree. I
do not like to come upon snakes in that manner. I do not care to view
them even behind glass in a museum. An earthquake might strike that
museum and break the glass and it might not be easy to get away. I wish
Eddie had been collecting snake skins for _his_ museum. I would have
been willing for him to skin that one alive.

I staggered out to the other end of the island, at last, with only a
flickering remnant of life left in me. I thought Eddie would be
grateful for all my efforts when I was not in full sympathy with the
undertaking; but he wasn't. He said that by not keeping up with the line
I had let the little mooses slip by, and that we would have to make the
drive again. I said he might have my route and I would take another. It
was a mistake, though. I couldn't seem to pick a better one. When we had
chased up and down that disordered island--that dumping ground of
nature--for the third time; when I had fallen over every log and stone,
and into every hole on it, and had scraped myself in every brush-heap,
and not one of us had caught even an imaginary glimpse of those little,
helpless, day-old meese, or mooses, or mice for they were har