expected to remain in camp were going about their usual
vocations, as for instance the cleaning up of the breakfast tin pans,
and cooking utensils. When a company of eleven souls has been having a
meal, these amount to considerable; and it took Bob White, Allan and
Bumpus some little time to accomplish the task of setting things to
rights.

Bumpus had gone to get some more water from the stream, and when he
came back he was grinning broadly.

"Why, you see," he explained, "there's an old rattlesnake coiled up
over there, and I've been making him as mad as hops, poking at him
with a pole. You just ought to come and see him strike, though!"

"I heard him rattle!" declared Thad, "but somehow I just thought it
was a locust waking up. Come on, boys, and let's put such a dangerous
customer out of the way!"

CHAPTER IX.

BAITING A RATTLESNAKE.

Of course they all hastened after the scoutmaster and Bumpus; the
latter really leading the way, with a consequential way about him, as
though he felt that he ought to be looked upon as master of
ceremonies, by right of first discovery.

"Here's the pole I had, when I poked him," he remarked, picking it up
as he spoke.

"But where's the rattler?" demanded Giraffe, just as swift as that;
for he was always as quick as lightning in his ways. "Show the old
fraud to us, will you? Must a slipped away while you came to camp with
the water."

"Huh!" sneered Step Hen, "I'd rather believe now, Bumpus don't know a
rattler when he sees one. P'raps it was only an innocent little garter
snake he was pokin', and a locust was singin' in a tree all the while."

Bumpus looked furious. He had lately gained quite an envious reputation
for a remarkable knowledge of woodcraft; and he was up in arms at the
idea of being thus placed once more in the tenderfoot class.

"Think I don't know a genuine rattlesnake when I see one, do you; well,
what d'ye think of a feller that'd jump over a log without even lookin',
and when a common garden variety of black snake gave him a jab, he
hollered that he was poisoned by a terrible rattler, and could even see
his poor leg swellin' up right before his eyes. Me not know one, when
I've been in the Zoo reptile house down in New York, and even watched
one swallow a rat! Well, I guess you're away off, Step Hen Bingham."

"Yes," put in Thad just then, "and it's too early in the day for a
locust to be in the noise business; I ought to have thought of that
m