CHAPTER XXXII. 



uz GAUNT'S SNAKE-STOKY. 



" WELL, as a sort of a text to my discourse, let me say, 

 when a snake's runnin' away from you, you can measure 

 it by inches ; but when it's comin' after you, every inch 

 is a foot long. That's how one feels about it. 



" Now, when the June fresh' was over the meadows, 

 and everything that wasn't a fish was afloat, I was busy 

 after ducks and anything else worth shootin'. "Well, one 

 morning, as I was floatin' about, seein' more curious ob- 

 jects at a glance than I ever did before or since, my eyes 

 rested on a big water-snake lyin' full stretch on a fence- 

 rail. He was a whopper, now, I tell you. The rail was 

 eleven foot lono; I measured it and the head of the 



O 



snake was at one end, and the tail mighty close to the 

 other." 



" Are you sure of that, Uz ? " I asked doubtingly. 



" Don't interrupt, boy ; that's the easiest part of it," 

 Uz continued. " Well, I wanted the skin of that snake, 

 jnst to show folks ; so I blazed away. I aimed at the mid- 

 dle of the snake, and no sooner than I'd pulled trigger, 

 when all of a sudden about a hundred snakes raised up on 

 that rail and seemed to make for me. I came near upset- 

 tin' the boat, I was so taken aback. What I'd seen wasn't 

 one big snake at all, but a whole swad of 'em, and they 

 had just twisted 'round each other like strands of a rope, 



