Otto winked at me. After Antonia rode on
he said: "Got him in the head first crack,
didn't you? That was just as well."

We hung him up to the windmill, and when
I went down to the kitchen I found Antonia
standing in the middle of the floor, telling the
story with a great deal of color.

Subsequent experiences with rattlesnakes
taught me that my first encounter was fortu-
nate in circumstance. My big rattler was
old, and had led too easy a life; there was not
much fight in him. He had probably lived
there for years, with a fat prairie-dog for
breakfast whenever he felt like it, a sheltered
home, even an owl-feather bed, perhaps, and
he had forgot that the world doesn't owe rat-
tlers a living. A snake of his size, in fighting
trim, would be more than any boy could han-
dle. So in reality it was a mock adventure; the
game was fixed for me by chance, as it prob-
ably was for many a dragon-slayer. I had been
adequately armed by Russian Peter; the snake
was old and lazy; and I had Antonia beside
me, to appreciate and admire.

That snake hung on our corral fence for
several days; some of the neighbors came to
see it and agreed that it was the biggest rattler

[[55]]

p054 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p055w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p056

v?