His right hand was
gripping the butt of his automatic. Every nerve in him was on the alert,
yet she could detect nothing of caution or preparedness in his careless
voice.
"The bloodstones didn't trouble me," he answered. "I can't remember
anything that upset me more than the snakes. I am a terrible coward when it
comes to anything that crawls without feet. I will run from a snake no
longer than your little finger--in fact, I'm just as scared of a little
grass snake as I am of a python. It's the _thing_, and not its size, that
horrifies me. Once I jumped out of a boat into ten feet of water because my
companion caught an eel on his line, and persisted in the argument that it
was a fish. Thank Heaven we don't have snakes up here. I've seen only three
or four in all my experience in the Northland."
She laughed softly in spite of the uneasy thrill the night held for her.
"It is hard for me to imagine you being afraid," she said. "And yet if you
were afraid I know it would be of just some little thing like that. My
father was one of the bravest men in the world, and a hundred times I have
seen him show horror at sight of a spider.
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