CREATURES OF MYSTERY 
147 
let them imagine some hostile, alien race planting themselves 
in the very midst of some thickly settled American community, 
hunting, fishing, multiplying, and in general carrying on all the 
normal activities of primitive people, and with not a living 
person lending a helping hand, neither making any show what¬ 
ever of the slightest sympathy; then some idea can be gained 
of their craftiness in matching wits with such a formidable 
array of forces pitted against them, and defying extermination 
from generation to generation. 
One can seldom engage Uncle Dave in conversation but that 
he has some thrilling experience to relate—an experience relat¬ 
ing to the same enemy, of course. It was on one of those fine 
spring days—one of those spring days calculated to make any 
person rejoice that they are living. The spring sun was bear¬ 
ing down, and a warm southwest wind off the bayous of the 
lower country bordering upon the Gulf of Mexico heralded the 
arrival of real spring. Nothing would do his six boys but that 
they must go out for a long stroll through the wild woodland 
surrounding his modest little shack, and it was not a very diffi¬ 
cult matter to persuade their dad to go along. All sev£n of 
them thought it was a glorious day, and while they were not 
conscious of the fact, their ever-present lurking enemy had 
the same idea about matters. Like so many young goats they 
went running, leaping and screaming through the woodland, 
with the old gentleman following close upon their heels. All of 
a sudden he detected the odor of something he did not like. 
Lifting his face upward as though looking at the sun, and 
sticking his nose into the breeze like an eagle scenting his 
quarry, he took a good “wriff.” Then, with the commanding 
voice of some military man, he commanded all the boys to 
stand still—“Don’t move out’n yer tracks,” he commanded, 
“thar’s a rattlesnake nigh ye, an’ he’ll shore nab one o’ ye if 
ye dare wiggle a toe.” He observed with care the orders he 
had given the boys, at the same time holding the least one by 
the hand while he spent what seemed to him several minutes, 
looking in all directions, peering underneath every leafy bush 
and tuft of grass. Finally he smelled the sickening odor of 
the rattler arising like hot steam from directly underneath his 
