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 had to walk up and down the narrow space of the cabin, swinging her arms to keep warm. She curled up in the bunk after a while and pulled the blankets around her. Her relief was enormous when the door opened and Squire Briggs appeared with her supper and a fresh supply of logs.

Casting them down upon the hearth, he kindled the fire once more and spoke into the shadows.

"I know not why ye cannot be a good girl like my 'Randy, 'stead o' traipsing around the country hearing things ye should not!" he burst out irritably.

Mehitable had to laugh at this and, offended, the Squire slammed down the trenchers he held upon the hearth and stalked from the cabin.

The girl waited until the fire blazed high, then jumped from the bunk and approached the trenchers which held her supper. But hungry as she was, she snatched back her hand without touching them and sprang to her feet. Retreating to the opposite wall she stood staring, rigid with horror. For there beside the trencher she had almost touched, with head erect, with tongue darting like a flame, with tail moving, was a large rattlesnake!

Mehitable could scarcely believe her eyes. Real country girl that she was she knew that all species of snakes retire to their holes the first cold night to sleep for months, not to waken from their torpor until the bright spring sunshine brings them forth. Yet here was this snake, not only alive but ready to attack, on one of the coldest nights of the year, with the thermometer at zero!