ack with him, he instantly placed at least six feet between
them, so that, should the snake charge, it could not reach them. But with
the enemy obviously on the retreat, the snake glided to cover in a
tumbled mass of rocks at one side.

"Gee! We nearly stepped on him!" the ranch boy exclaimed, with a voice
that was not quite steady. "Next time we go poking into a place like
that, let's poke in a stick first, or throw a stone, to make sure there's
'nobody home.'"

"Wish I'd a brought a hair rope," mused Ace. "We might have had one that
would go clear around all our sleeping bags. First chance we get, I'm
going to buy one."

"Naw! We won't need one. Did you ever see a rattler catch a rabbit?"
asked his chum.

"No, d'you?"

"Once I was going along when I noticed the trail of some sort of snake
going across the road. Next thing I heard a rabbit squeal, and by the
time I spotted the snake it had a hump half way down its throat, and it
was swallowing and swallowing trying to get that rabbit down whole."

"I consider the possibility of rattlesnake bite the one biggest danger in
the whole Sierra," declared Norris, one night, lighting each step
carefully over the rocks. "And he does his hunting by night."

"Considerate of him!" laughed Ace, "seeing that campers do most of theirs
by day. But why is it such a danger? I've heard opinions pro and con."

"Rattlesnake venom disintegrates the blood vessels, makes the blood thin
and unable to clot. I knew a man who was struck in the ankle, and they
had to amputate the leg, and the very bones of that leg were saturated
with the blood that had seeped through the weakened walls of the blood
vessels."

"How does it feel to be struck, I wonder?" the boy shuddered.

"This man's ankle became discolored practically immediately and began to
swell. Of course the bite was through his sock, which must have kept a
little of the poison out of it, and it fortunately did not happen to
penetrate an artery. We could have cut and kneaded the wound instantly to
clear out as much as possible of the venom before it had time to enter
the blood system, but the fellow refused such heroic measures. We should
have taken him by force; it would have saved his leg, likely, for
ordinarily this, and a ligature, will do the work.

"Or we could have burned it clean, or injected the serum if we'd had
it. But as I was about to explain, he soon became dull and languid,
breathing noisily, for the poison affecte