“Wait!” said Cardross; “I want Hamil to see.”  And to Hamil:  “Ride forward; you ought to know what the ugly brutes look like!”

As he drew bridle at Shiela’s left the girl, still intent, pointed in silence; but he looked in vain for the snake, mistaking every palmetto root for a serpent, until she leaned forward and told him to sight along her extended arm.  Then he saw a dull gray fold without any glitter to it, draped motionless over a palmetto root, and so like the root that he could scarcely believe it anything else.

“That?”

“Yes.  It’s as thick as a man’s arm.”

“Is it a moccasin?”

“It is; a cotton-mouth.”

The guide drawled:  “Ah reckon he’s asleep, Miss Cahdhoss.  Ah’ll make him rare up ’f yew say so.”

“Make him rear up,” suggested Gray.  “And stand clear, Hamil, because Shiela must shoot quick if he slides for the water.”

The men backed their nervously snorting horses, giving her room; Stent dismounted, picked up a pig-nut, and threw it accurately.  Instantly the fat mud-coloured fold slipped over the root and a head appeared rising straight out of the coils up into the air—­a flat and rather small head on a horribly swollen body, stump-tailed, disgusting.  The head was looking at them, stretched high, fully a third of the creature in the air.  Then, soundlessly, the wide-slitted mouth opened; and Hamil saw its silky white lining.

“Moccasins stand their ground,” said the girl, raising her gun.  The shot crashed out; the snake collapsed.  For fully a minute they watched; not a fold even quivered.

“Struck by lightning,” said Gray; “the buzzards will get him.”  And he drew a folding butterfly net from his saddle boot, affixed ring and gauze bag, and cantered forward briskly in the wake of a great velvety black butterfly which was sailing under the live-oaks above his head.

His father, wishing to talk to Eudo Stent, rode ahead with the guide, leaving Shiela and Hamil to follow.

The latter reined in and waited while the girl leisurely returned the fowling-piece to its holster.  Then, together, they walked their horses forward, wading the “branch” which flowed clear as a trout stream out of the swamp on their right.

“It looks drinkable,” he said.

“It is, for Crackers; but there’s fever in it for you, Mr. Hamil....  Look at Gray!  He’s missed his butterfly.  But it’s a rather common one—­the black form of the tiger swallow-tail.  Just see those zebra-striped butterflies darting like lightning over the palmetto scrub!  Gray and I could never catch them until one day we found a ragged one that couldn’t fly and we placed it on a leaf; and every time one of those butterflies came our way it paused in its flight for a second and hovered over the ragged one.  And that’s how Gray and I caught the swift Ajax butterflies for his collection!...  I’ve helped him considerably, if you please; I brought him the mysterious Echo moth from Ormond, and a wonderful little hornet moth from Jupiter Inlet.”