Page:Gray Eagle (1927).pdf/257

 seen before, he never doubted what its conduct would be.

He glided on, therefore, sounding his battle-call, while the metallic eyes scintillated dangerously in his upraised head.

The kingsnake lay absolutely without movement, apparently unaware of the rattler's approach. It chanced that he was at that moment in an unusually peaceable and lazy mood, desiring only to be let alone. He had hunted the broom grass folk to good purpose that morning, and afterwards he had sought the soft sand at the bottom of the ditch to bask in comfort while the two furry bodies inside of him underwent the process of digestion.

Yet, for all his languor, he was not asleep. The mild black eyes set in his small, blunt-nosed head had seen the rattler at the moment when the latter appeared in the path. They had watched the intruder keenly as he glided down the slope and had noted without the slightest change of expression the huge size of that glittering armored body, three times as thick and only a little shorter than his own.

Until the angry, plated head with its gaping jaws was almost upon him, and the slim neck beneath it was bending back for a thrust, he gave no sign either of dismay or of defiance. Then, however, as if only at that moment endued with life and with a lightning-like quickness which rendered the