Frank felt prouder of Minnie than ever before--to hear how in time of an emergency she could act promptly, instead of squealing as some girls certainly would have done. "Then I fainted from the shock," the lady continued, "but not before I saw that snake dart out of coil in the effort to reach me and, failing, draw back again on the defensive. Minnie actually dragged me, with all my weight, some distance away from the reptiles' den, and when later on I came to, there was not a single snake in sight." "Min, you're just the finest trump ever," exclaimed Lanky. "I sure take off my hat to a girl like you. But didn't you two hear all the noise that was going on up around the ranch house?" "Yes, I heard it, and was puzzled to know what the shouting and all that black smoke could mean," Minnie admitted. "But your mother still lay in that swoon, and my first duty was to her." "She actually went past the den again, so as to get some cold water from the spring," explained Mrs. Wallace, turning to her husband, who arrived just then. "It was that that revived me. But I felt so weak and shaky that although both of us were greatly concerned on account of the dreadful sounds we heard and all that black smoke, we were some time in getting started for the house." Minnie had left the group, knowing that Mrs. Wallace would be telling it all over again to her husband, and of course repeating her praise. Frank understand the modesty that could not bear to hear her own heroism praised, and he hurried after Minnie, walking with her to view the now almost gutted barn, which would soon be only a blackened pile, never to be rebuilt. Great was the surprise of Lige Smith and the other punchers when they learned from Frank what had happened to alarm the ladies. "Did you ever hear of such colossal nerve as those snakes showed in locatin' so close to human beings and actually fixing up a vipers' nest?" burst out Lige. "Boys, I take it that looks like a deadly insult. Reckon as how we ain't no use around these diggings, since the ole barn's a goner. Let's get busy and clean out that snake hole." Nothing could please the punchers better, and there was an immediate scurrying around for poles and anything else that was likely to prove useful in bringing destruction to the "owdacious rattler crowd," as Jerry Brime remarked. Of course, all three boys went along with the crowd to see how the extermination of the prairie rattlesnakes progressed. Lanky smothered his abject dislike and vowed he would be the death of that big reptile because of which his mother had just passed through such suffering. "I'd like to say I'd given one of the wrigglers a stiff crack on the head so's to break his scaly neck," he confided to Paul, who limped along, bent on seeing all the fun there was to see.