But with all our contriving there were a number of cases for which we could find no room, and these we covered with bits of oil-cloth, and left them out of doors. They led us a dreadful life, those seven cases; our ranchman was for ever predicting rain, which did not come, but kept us anxiously on the watch. Finally, when it did come, it was unexpected, and we had to rush out one night to see if the high wind, which had risen with the rain, had dislodged the oil-cloth. That was a lively night, for the rain came running down the inside walls of our barn in little streams on the windward side, and pictures and other things hung there for safety had to be hurriedly removed. It was the first night, too, that a large, handsome kangaroo rat paid us a visit, running about like an acrobat among the chairs on the rafters, and when I carried a candle quite near to him, to see what he was like, he looked down at me with the greatest coolness and impudence, with his brilliant black eyes. The place seemed to suit him, for he became a constant visitor. Another intimate guest was a particularly large lizard, who darted in and out under the big door. We were a little uneasy lest some less harmless visitors should invite themselves. We knew that there were scorpions and tarantulas; the men who had built our barn had unwittingly pitched their tent the first night just over a nest of tarantulas, and had discovered them in the early evening, and spent the rest of the night in searching for and killing them with their hammers. Ugly, wicked-looking things they are, with their enormous hairy legs and body and cruel nippers; they are very aggressive, too, and would much rather fight than run away. But most of all we dreaded the rattlesnakes. Our ranchman had killed thirty on the adjoining land, and several had already been found on ours. Everyone told us they were very easy to kill, but that did not reassure us. Our first introduction to snakes was more alarming than dangerous. We had put all our umbrellas and sticks into a corner of the barn behind a large corner seat. One day whilst we were quietly resting after dinner, our youngest boy, Gip, asleep on his couch, my husband chanced to be looking at these umbrellas, thinking sleepily that he did not recognise one of the handles, which seemed to stand out from the rest, when he was suddenly made wide awake by seeing it move quietly round, first to one side then to the other, and knew that it was a snake. He reached out his hand quietly for something to strike it with, but it darted out of sight at once behind the couch, and though we searched long for it, we did not find it. We found, however, a large notch hole through which it had probably crept in, and we lost no time in closing this securely. It was not a rattlesnake, however, and was probably quite harmless, as numbers of the snakes are, some of them being considered valuable as destroyers of vermin.