This was a new difficulty to be got over, or gone around. But there was no time for hesitation, and waiting but a second, he lifted his feet and commenced pushing himself over. His body passed over safely, and, feeling considerably relieved, he recommenced his novel retreat. But he had scarcely taken a step, when he heard a sound beside him that made his blood tingle with horror. It was the warning of the rattlesnake! Glancing furtively around, Kingman saw the reptile within six feet of him. His scaly, glittering body lay coiled like a rope, and from the centre his head, terrible in its beauty, rose some eighteen inches, and was drawn back, ready for the fatal strike. The tail on the outside of the horrid ring was gently swaying, giving forth that deadly rattle, and the whole body seemed alive and excited. Hardly a more terrible spectacle can be conceived than that of the coiled and bristling rattlesnake. The one in question was about five feet in length, and was gathered in a circle of a foot in diameter. The head was drawn back in a glistening arch, like the neck of a swan. As he lay, a patch of the sunlight broke through the treetops and rested upon him, making his whole body to glisten with a thousand brilliant variegated colors. His eye shone with a malignant glitter, like the ray of the star through the dark cloud, and his tongue flashed with lightning-like rapidity round his flat, swaying head. So rapid and incessant were the movements of this, that to Kingman it resembled a tiny stream of bright red blood crossing the neck and head in every direction. Several times the cavernous jaws were distended, and the white fangs, loaded with venom, could be seen curving inward, and as pointed as a needle. Kingman saw all this in less time than it takes us to describe it. His first movement, upon seeing the reptile so nigh him, was an involuntary recoil, which had well discovered him to his human enemy. He felt the double danger that now menaced him. The rattlesnake had warned him once, and in a minute would strike. He could spring to his feet, and, with a little dexterity, avoid him; but, in the place of the sluggish reptile, the swift bullet of the Shawnee could not be avoided. No; Kingman made up his mind that an encounter with the reptile was preferable to one with the vindictive Shawnee.