"The squatter and his brood have left a strong scent on the earth,"
said the old man, watching as he spoke for some signal from his
learned pioneer to follow; "I hope yonder school-bred man knows enough
to remember the errand on which I have sent him."
Doctor Battius had already disappeared in the bushes and the trapper
was beginning to betray additional evidences of impatience, when the
person of the former was seen retiring from the thicket backwards,
with his face fastened on the place he had just left, as if his look
was bound in the thraldom of some charm.
"Here is something skeery, by the wildness of the creatur's
countenance!" exclaimed the old man relinquishing his hold of Hector,
and moving stoutly to the side of the totally unconscious naturalist.
"How is it, friend; have you found a new leaf in your book of wisdom?"
"It is a basilisk!" muttered the Doctor, whose altered visage betrayed
the utter confusion which beset his faculties. "An animal of the
order, serpens. I had thought its attributes were fabulous, but mighty
nature is equal to all that man can imagine!"
"What is't? what is't? The snakes of the prairies are harmless, unless
it be now and then an angered rattler and he always gives you notice
with his tail, afore he works his mischief with his fangs.
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