Page:Rover Boys on the Plains.djvu/200

184 was a collection of snakes numbering at least thirty or forty. They were black, brown and green in color and from two to four feet in length. Some were lying flat, while others were curled up in various attitudes.

"Snakes!" faltered Fred. "And what a lot of them!"

"Dere ain't no choke apout dis!" gasped Hans, his eyes almost as big as saucers. "Vot shall ve do?"

"Get your pistols, boys!" came from Songbird, and he drew his weapon.

"Don't shoot!" and Tom caught the other by the arm. "If you kill one snake, the others will go for us sure. What an awful lot of them! This locality must be a regular snakes' den."

"If they come in here, we'll all be bitten, and if they are poisonous—" Fred tried to go on, but could not.

"There is no telling if they are poisonous or not," returned Tom. "One thing is sure, I don't want them to sample me," and the others said about the same.

What to do was at first a question. The snakes lay about ten feet from the front of the shelter and in a semicircle, so that the boys could not get out, excepting by stepping on the reptiles or leaping over them.