On that day the Ornithologist and myself were on our way to a rattlesnake den, the secret of which had been in the Pan family for some generations. In past years Jim's forbears had done a thriving business in selling skins and rattlesnake oil, in the days when the rattlesnake shared with the skunk the honor of providing an unwilling cure for rheumatism. Our path led up through masses of color. There was the pale pure pink of the crane's-bill or wild geranium, the yellow adder's tongue, and the faint blue-and-white porcelain petals of the hepatica, with cluster after cluster of the snowy, golden-hearted bloodroot whose frail blossoms last but for a day. That very morning a long-delayed warbler-wave was breaking over the mountain, and the Ornithologist could hardly contain himself as he watched the different varieties pass by. I recall that we scored over twenty different kinds of warblers between dawn and dark, and I saw for the first time the Wilson's black-cap, with its bright yellow breast and tiny black crown, and the rare Cape May warbler, with its black-streaked yellow underparts and orange-red cheeks. The richly dressed and sombre black-throated blue and bay-breasted were among the crowd, while black-throated greens, myrtles, magnolias, chestnut-sided, blackpolls, Canadians, redstarts, with their fan-shaped tails, and Blackburnians, with their flaming throats and breasts glowing like live coals, went by in a never-ending procession. All the way Jim kept up a steady flow of anecdote. I can remember only one, a blood-curdling story about a man from Bridgeport, name not given, who caught a rattlesnake while on a hunt with Jim, but who let go while attempting to put it into the bag, whereupon the rattlesnake bit him as it dropped. "Did he die?" queried the writer and the Ornithologist in chorus. "No," said Jim proudly; "Tin and I saved his life." "Whiskey?" ventured the writer. "Not for snake-bites," responded Jim simply. "Well, how was it?" persisted the Ornithologist, hoping to learn of some mysterious Indian remedy. "Well," said Jim, stretching out his tremendous arms like a great bear, "I held him tight and Tin here burned the place out. It took two matches and he yelled somethin' terrible. I told him we were savin' his life, but the fool said he would rather die of snake-bite than be burned to death. You wouldn't suppose a grown man would make such a fuss over two little matches."