"And you could get the rattles to show when you tell the yarn," suggested Paul. "I've got three of the same at home--used to hunt snakes every spring, just to know there was one less poisonous creature laid out stiff." The crowd were soon on the spot. They found that the nest of snakes was not a creature of the imagination. Several "bouncers," as Lanky called them, set up a droning buzz as the party approached, and being quickly located were attacked with the poles and pistols. Frank and Lanky were in the midst of the fray. A big rattler came for Frank, but he caught the reptile in the head with a rock. "Look out!" yelled Lanky suddenly. Frank whirled around, to see a medium-sized snake in the act of dropping from a bush just behind him. He flung another rock and at the same instant Lanky hit the snake with a club he carried. "On your guard, boys!" yelled one of the cowboys. "We're in a nest of 'em." "This is too much for me!" gasped Paul, and lost no time in limping to a distance. "Take that!" yelled Frank, and struck at another snake with a pole he had picked up. "There you are," came from Lanky, and he quickly dispatched three small snakes squirming from between some rocks. He had hardly done this when he gave a mad yell as another snake wound itself around his ankle. Crack! It was the report of Lige Smith's pistol. He had aimed at the snake's head. His aim was true and the reptile dropped to the ground and went whipping out of sight in the bushes. "Gosh, but that was a narrow escape," murmured Lanky, his face growing pale. "I'll say so," was the reply. "But come on, there are more snakes over yonder." The work of fighting the reptiles went on, and when the big ones had been settled even Paul took a hand in cleaning out what remained. "Say, Frank, did you see me get a crack at that corking big one?" Lanky exclaimed, beaming with excitement and the knowledge that he was gradually overcoming his excessive fear of the entire snake family. "It may be the granddaddy of the whole bunch," Frank told him, "and, as like as not, the very one that struck at your mother." "I'm believing in that way, anyhow," affirmed the tall boy. "And now for getting his rattle box." "Be sure to cut his head off first," warned Frank. "I've known of cases where a rattler believed to be done for was able to coil up and strike a fellow's leg with his poisoned fangs." When the punchers and the boys got through with their self-imposed job there was not a live snake, small or large, in all that patch of woods. "We'll sure keep our eyes peeled after this," said Lige Smith, as they started back to the ranch house "and it's a pipe cinch no snakes are ever going to hole out again in our wood patch." Of course, Mr. Wallace was sorry to lose all the hay and straw that had gone up in smoke and flames, for it might prove useful during the coming winter season.