e, the bushes of huckle-berry and
sweet fern swarmed at it in two curling waves until it was a mere
winding line traced through a tangle. There was no interference by
clouds, and as the rays of the sun fell full upon the ridge, they called
into voice innumerable insects which chanted the heat of the summer day
in steady, throbbing, unending chorus.

A man and a dog came from the laurel thickets of the valley where the
white brook brawled with the rocks. They followed the deep line of the
path across the ridge. The dog--a large lemon and white setter--walked,
tranquilly meditative, at his master's heels.

Suddenly from some unknown and yet near place in advance there came a
dry, shrill whistling rattle that smote motion instantly from the limbs
of the man and the dog. Like the fingers of a sudden death, this sound
seemed to touch the man at the nape of the neck, at the top of the
spine, and change him, as swift as thought, to a statue of listening
horror, surprise, rage. The dog, too--the same icy hand was laid upon
him, and he stood crouched and quivering, his jaw dropping, the froth of
terror upon his lips, the light of hatred in his eyes.

Slowly the man moved his hands toward the bushes, but his glance did not
turn from the place made sinister by the warning rattle. His fingers,
unguided, sought for a stick of weight and strength. Presently they
closed about one that seemed adequate, and holding this weapon poised
before him, the man moved slowly forward, glaring. The dog with his
nervous nostrils fairly fluttering moved warily, one foot at a time,
after his master.

But when the man came upon the snake, his body underwent a shock as if
from a revelation, as if after all he had been ambushed. With a blanched
face, he sprang forward, and his breath came in strained gasps, his
chest heaving as if he were in the performance of an extraordinary
muscular trial. His arm with the stick made a spasmodic, defensive
gesture.

The snake had apparently been crossing the path in some mystic travel
when to his sense there came the knowledge of the coming of his foes.
The dull vibration perhaps informed him, and he flung his body to face
the danger. He had no knowledge of paths; he had no wit to tell him to
slink noiselessly into the bushes. He knew that his implacable enemies
were approaching; no doubt they were seeking him, hunting him. And so
he cried his cry, an incredibly swift jangle of tiny bells, as burdened
with path