A HARMLESS SNAKE. 129 



startled by a black snake, five feet or more in 

 length, taking life, as it were, at my very feet, 

 and moving onward in rapid wriggling motion 

 down the slope before me. For quite a distance 

 it glides down the bed of a small arroyo or 

 water worn gully, then taking to the grassy hill- 

 side it moves as rapidly among shrubs, weeds 

 and stems of blue-grass. Suddenly stopping, it 

 raises the forward third of its body so that the 

 head is above the grass and weeds, and turning 

 it to one side, gazes back to see if I am coming. 

 It can evidently see thirty feet or more back as, 

 when I reach to within that distance, it drops to 

 the ground again, and glides rapidly beneath a 

 shelving bank, which hides it from view. 

 Twenty years ago I would have seized the near- 

 est club or stone and hastened to mangle the 

 handsome, glossy black, inoffensive reptile. 

 Ten years later I would have run after it, put 

 my foot down upon its neck, and catching it just 

 back of the head, would have consigned it, 

 squirming and alive, to a bottle of alcohol. To- 

 day I but move slowly along its pathway, note 

 the freedom and gracefulness of its motion, and 



(9) 



