Moccasins affect mud--_look_ there!" Both horses shyed; in front Shiela's mount was behaving badly, but even while she was mastering him she tried at the same time to extract her shotgun from the leather boot.

Stent rode up and drew it out for her; Hamil saw her break and load, swing in the saddle, and gaze straight into an evil-looking bog all set with ancient cypress knees and the undulating snaky roots of palmettos.
"A perfectly enormous one, dad!" she called back.
"Wait!" said Cardross; "I want Hamil to see." And to Hamil: "Ride forward; you ought to know what the ugly brutes look like!" As he drew bridle at Shiela's left the girl, still intent, pointed in silence; but he looked in vain for the snake, mistaking every palmetto root for a serpent, until she leaned forward and told him to sight along her extended arm.

Then he saw a dull gray fold without any glitter to it, draped motionless over a palmetto root, and so like the root that he could scarcely believe it anything else.
"That ?" "Yes.

It's as thick as a man's arm." "Is it a moccasin ?" "It is; a cotton-mouth." The guide drawled: "Ah reckon he's asleep, Miss Cahdhoss.

Ah'll make him rare up 'f yew say so." "Make him rear up," suggested Gray.