"Except for unimportant variations in size, there was perhaps some hundreds of thousands of others, just like the Little Villager, sitting on their hillocks, or popping in and out of their round doorways, and chattering and barking in shrill chorus under the pale blue dome of a lovely sky. But on the hillock next door to the Little Villager sat no garrulous, furry gossip like himself. That mound top was deserted. But at its foot, curled up and basking in the still blaze of the sun, close beside the doorway, lay a thick-bodied, dusty-colored rattler, the intricate markings on his back dimmed as if by too much light and heat. His venomous, triangular head, with the heavy jaw base that showed great poison pockets, lay flat on his coils, and he had the lazy, well-fed appearance of one who does not have to forage for his meals. Here and there, scattered at wide intervals throughout the village, were to be seen other rattlers, of all sizes, from foot-long youngsters up to stout fellows over a yard in length, either basking in the hollows or lazily wriggling their way between the hillocks. They seemed to pay no attention whatever to the furry villagers; for a rattler likes to make a huge meal when he's about it, and therefore does not bother often about the, to him, rather laborious process of dining. The villagers, on their part, also seemed to pay little attention to the snakes; except that those who chanced to be foraging on the coarse herbage which grew between the hillocks always got out of the way with alacrity if a wriggling form approached, and not one of the coiled baskers ever woke up and shifted its position but that a hundred pairs of bright, innocent eyes would be fixed upon it until its intentions became quite clear.