216 
CREATURES OF MYSTERY 
got fingers and toes, an’ now ye can’t fin’ yer way to the lot 
less’un I guide ye. I b’lieves to me name ye’re ’proachin’ yer 
secon’ chil’hood.” 
Deep in his heart he knew that she loved him more now than 
she did in her girlhood days, but accepted her expressions of 
solicitude as a reprimand, he proceeded to soften her up with 
the kind entreaty: “Now come on, sweet womern, don’t be 
unpatient w’ me—jes’ show me the way to the barn so’s I kin 
feed the critters—they mus’ be a-gittin’ hongry b’ now.” So 
saying, they both dropped the subject and walked leisurely 
along the way, discussing other trivial events of the day. When 
she came within sight of the barn door, everything was made 
perfectly clear to her, or so she thought. Coiled in a depres* 
sion, immediately in front of the door where he always stood 
to gather an arm load of corn for his horse was an eight-foot 
rattler, attracted to the spot from a nearby hedge with designs 
upon the rats infesting his barn, and the fry chickens about 
his barnyard. 
From his sacs might have been extracted enough venom to 
kill forty strong men if apportioned equally among them. 
Under the law of averages these two occurrences should not 
have happened at the same time. There is one chance in a 
million that it was a mere coincidence. What is the true an¬ 
swer ? 
