Page:Three Young Ranchmen.djvu/78

68 "Now, I reckon it's all right," he said to himself. "And the next best thing is to strike out for home."

Climbing the tree, Allen took his bearings as well as he was able, and then struck off as rapidly as his tired legs and sore feet would permit.

He had covered perhaps half a mile when he came to a steep decline. He tried to proceed down this with care, but slipped and rolled with a crash through the brush to the bottom.

It was a bad fall and hurt him not a little, but that was not the worst of it.

The passage through the brush aroused half a score of snakes, some small and others a yard and over in length, and now they came after him, hissing angrily and several preparing to dart at him.

It was small wonder that Allen gave a yell. He knew the reptiles were, many of them, poisonous, and he had not the first thing with which to defend himself. He leaped back to retreat, but only to find himself surrounded.

No one who has never been surrounded by snakes can realize the terrible feeling which awakens in one's breast at such an experience. It is a feeling that, once realized, is never