"My
father is Irish, and half should be enough to entitle me to that much.
'Maybe--if I'd--be telling you,'" she imitated, rounding and accenting
each word carefully.
Freckles was beginning to feel a wildness in his head. He had derided
Wessner at that same hour yesterday. Now his own eyes were filling with
tears.
"If you were understanding the danger!" he continued desperately.
"Oh, I don't think there is much!"
She tilted on the morass.
"If you killed one snake here, it's probably all there is near; and
anyway, the Bird Woman says a rattlesnake is a gentleman and always
gives warning before he strikes. I don't hear any rattling. Do you?"
"Would you be knowing it if you did?" asked Freckles, almost
impatiently.
How the laugh of the young thing rippled!
"'Would I be knowing it?'" she mocked. "You should see the swamps of
Michigan where they dump rattlers from the marl-dredgers three and four
at a time!"
Freckles stood astounded. She did know. She was not in the least afraid.
She was depending on a rattlesnake to live up to his share of the
contract and rattle in time for her to move.
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