A thought brought a grim smile to the boy's lips, and a satanic light flitted across his eyes, like the shadow of a bird skimming the ground. He hurriedly withdrew one of the loaded shells from his pocket. He would surely now put an end to Sap McGill. A brute of his caliber should have died long, long ago. He would be dead and safely beyond all further deviltry in a few seconds. His eyes burning with the lust of this design, Bud reached down to take up McGill's shotgun to reload it, when he heard Lem's distant voice. His words startled Buddy, and arrested his hand. "Belle-Ann's a comin'--Belle-Ann's a comin'--Belle-Ann's come back," echoed back to the boy. Then it was that the psychological impulse dashed upon little Bud, wrenching out of his mind his intent of manslaughter. His fingers never reached the shotgun. He dropped the loaded shell and, jerking his new hat off, he flung his head back and fairly flew after his brother. With all the might he could muster into his skinny legs, he left the scene of this bloodless encounter behind. McGill lay face upward. He had not moved a muscle since he fell. The sleepy stillness was broken only by the wild bird voices of the wood. A suspicious catbird dropped down on the end of a log near the silent figure and gave vent to his whining, petulant phrase. From under the rock upon which McGill's head had struck, the head of a live thing was thrust. Then a long, gorgeous body slid into view. Its sinuous length was embellished with beautiful pigments of gold and black and light canary. With the omnivorous curiosity of the reptile for all inanimate objects, the rattlesnake thrust his mouth, shaped like that of a catfish, up to Sap's ear. The two black rings circling his little incandescent eyes began to swell. The whole surface of his mottled head flattened out and pulsed. He seemed to be breathing through the top of his head. A peculiar half-sound, indescribable, issued forth when the dappled tip of the snake's tail quivered. Like a forked needle his tongue flashed in and out of his throat. As the rattlesnake's challenge met with utter immobility, he started a thorough inspection. He began at the ear and nosed on down to the feet. Then he came up on the other side of the unconscious man, back to the starting point. A cloud passed, and the sun fell straight down upon the man's face. With a snake's love for radiation the rattler, now apparently satisfied, glided up on McGill's breast. With no sign of life communicating, and finding warmth beneath him, and warmth above him, the rattler coiled himself in a jiffy and lay basking comfortably on McGill's bosom.