_Dreamy_, that was the way it seemed to the panic-stricken Skinny. The thing was so unreal! Following immediately upon his frantic striving, this loathsome thing had slowly emerged upon the stick and by a kind of sluggish inevitable instinct incorporated Skinny's thin leg in its unconscious coiling. There he was bound by this living horror to the big limb hie had been using. So drowsily deliberate was the long snake that it would have seemed not amiss to remind it of its ghastly error. But if its instinctive action had been purposeless it was none the less effectual. It was tightly coiled around these two dissimilar supports; it seemed as free of malice and intention as so much binding rope. But even in his astonishment and fright, Skinny saw that it was a great rattlesnake; its bony appendage looked like a pine cone lying against the branch. Bound to this branch as he was, he could not stand and he sank down exhausted and terror-stricken in the depression. It was the usual sort of climax to his heroic achievements. He was in no condition to ponder on the cause of this singular happening, but the reader will surmise the facts. The snake was probably in a stupor caused by the fumes below when Skinny's long implement descended into the suffocating cave. Instinctively it had coiled itself about the stick and was lifted out before its coiling was complete. The depth of its stupor may be conceived by its drowsy action of including the adjacent leg of its rescuer as it settled into coiled inertness. If Skinny could have stood erect perhaps he would have had some command of himself, would have thought of something to do. But he was at the same disadvantage as a person is who has been knocked down. He was powerless till he could rise; and he could not rise. His whole little trembling body seemed involved in this ghastly attack. If he had been bound and thrown into that little muddy jungle, he would have felt less fearful, less at the mercy of a foe. But this horrifying thing had occurred without a struggle on his part. He had striven like one possessed, till his stout little heart beat like a trip-hammer, and then, in the proud moment of his triumph this deadly reptile had slowly, silently, probably unconsciously coiled its slimy, clinging form around his leg, and he had gone down in defeat--perhaps to death.