Kent Edwards saw a nodding May-apple flower--as fair as a calla and as odorous as a pink--at a little distance, and hastened to pick it.

He came back with it in the muzzle of his gun, and his hands full of violets.
A thick-bodied rattlesnake crawled slowly and clumsily out from the shelter of a little ledge, his fearful eyes gleaming with deadly intentions against a ground-squirrel frisking upon the end of a mossy log, near where Captain Bob Bennett was seated, poring over a troublesome detail in the "Tactics." The snake saw the man, and his awkward movement changed at once into one of electric alertness.

He sounded his terrible rattle, and his dull diamonds and stripes lighted up with the glare that shines through an enraged man's face.

The thick body seemed to lengthen out and gain a world of sinuous suppleness.

With the quickness of a flash he was coiled, with head erect, forked tongue protruding, and eyes flaming like satanic jewels.
A shout appraised Captain Bennett of his danger.