"Rattlesnake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hands over our heads, jumped about three feet, and let out a whoop. This was the "stunt" that he started out there in the country, where we were by ourselves. Automatically, without thinking, I swung my arms and leaped with him and yelled. Only later did I notice the rattlesnake over which I had jumped. I had not seen that I was about to walk right into it, and he had noticed it too late to explain. A flash of genius suggested the cheering stunt ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... ball to roll ver' swif' An' firs' fall from de dock Vas bottom off on July pork; An' heem dat held de stock Commence to hiss an' wriggle Lak' a yellow rattlesnake; De res' buzz jus' lak' bumblebee Stirred ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... in the matriarchal period of development, which precedes the patriarchal; and it is then, should they become sedentary, that caste appears to be born. Some valuable secret, such as a cure for the bite of the rattlesnake, is discovered, and this gives the finder, and chosen members of his clan with whom he shares it, a peculiar sanctity in the eyes of the rest of the tribe. Like facts, however, become known to other clans, and then coalitions ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... understood. When one idea has got possession of the soul, it is scarcely possible to keep it from finding its way to the lips. Error, once committed, has a fascinating power, like that ascribed to the eyes of the rattlesnake, to draw us into a second error. It deprives us of that proud confidence in our own strength, to which we are indebted for so much of our virtue. Curiosity is a restless propensity, and often does but hurry us forward the more irresistibly, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... to jokes now, y'all remember dat rattlesnake Ah kilt on Lake Hope was 'most big as ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... Snake Bull's, Indian name is Ear-Ous-Sah-Chee-dups, which means male snake. Years ago when far from camp he was bitten by a rattlesnake. The only companion with him did all within his power to save his friend. The death stupor was coming on, and his companion hurried to the camp with the tidings. His relations rushed to the rescue. He finally recovered and has ever since been called ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... like everything to do its office, whether it be a milch-cow or a rattlesnake," he assumed, perhaps somewhat too hastily in the latter case, that all the world understands the functions which a milch-cow or a rattlesnake is called upon to perform. No one can doubt that the office of a translator is to translate, but a wide difference of opinion may exist, and, in fact, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... mercy of the sun, and is high or low, according as that rises or sets in the heavens. At Martinique, where at noonday it darts its devouring rays perpendicularly upon the cane-fields, and every one flies into the shade to escape its scorching heat, the rattlesnake traverses the country, monarch of all he surveys; he strikes rapidly with a vigorous tail upon the calcined ground; and woe then to any one who receives his bite! All the fire of the atmosphere has passed into his frame. Now ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... the table, his face a map of appalling fury and hate. "Let him go to it, then. I've been a cripple seventeen years because Beaudry shot me up. By God! I'll gun his son inside of twenty-four hours. I'll stomp him off'n the map like he was a rattlesnake." ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... leave your homes and seek its destruction. I would not here inquire minutely into its history. It is said to have originated in Arabia, the country of the false prophet. The aborigines of our forests never knew it. They could proudly tread on the rattlesnake and copperhead, but never fell before the worm of the still. O woful day when it found its way to our coasts; when here ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... creature is so absolutely graceful as a rattlesnake, and none more gentle in intention. It is only against imposition that he protests. Our forefathers had learned a not unworthy lesson from their contact with nature in the New World when they put upon the first flag of the colonies a rattlesnake, with the Latin legend, Nemo ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... long and deliberate journey, (he says,) one would suppose, might have introduced his party to an intimate acquaintance with some of these pests of America. It is true that they killed several of the serpent tribe; black snakes, garter-snakes, &c. and that they saw one rattlesnake of extraordinary size. They experienced inconvenience from musquitoes in a few damp spots, just as they would have done from gnats in England. In their late expeditions in the Illinois, where they led the lives of thorough backwoods-men, if they were so unfortunate as to pitch their ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... pole under it and slung it ashore. "There! how do you like that?" said he, and he headed the boat upstream again. It was a "copper-bellied moccasin," he declared, whatever that may be, and was worse than a rattlesnake. ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... Zamuro, or Galinazo: the Brazilian vulture of Buffon. I cannot reconcile myself to the adoption of names, which designate, as belonging to a single country, animals common to a whole continent.) the crocodile, the viper, and the rattlesnake. The gaseous emanations, which are the vehicles of this aroma, seem to be evolved in proportion only as the mould, containing the spoils of an innumerable quantity of reptiles, worms, and insects, begins to be impregnated with water. I have seen ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... staggered in their belief of it. "These men do certainly play strange tricks and very dexterously." The same writer also observes, "One of the negroes whom I had hired with the plantation of Jaguaribi, had one leg much thicker than the other. This was occasioned, as he told me, by the bite of a rattlesnake; he said he had been cured from the bites of snakes by a certain curador de cobra, or Mandingueiro, and had therefore not died; but that as the 'moon was strong,' he had not escaped receiving some injury from ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... of the villain Love.' Such love as it was—the love of the privileged butcher for the lamb. The burden of the letters, put in epigram, was rattlesnake and bird. A narrative of Anastasia's sister, Elizabeth, signed and sealed, with names of witnesses appended, related in brief bald English the history of the events which had killed her. It warmed pathetically when dwelling on the writer's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a rattlesnake, nor a shark. These creatures only fulfil their natures. The shark who devours a baby is no more sinful than the lady who eats a shrimp. We do not blame the maniac who burns a house down and brains a policeman, nor the mad dog who bites a minor poet. But, none the less, ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... snakes used in this dance are treated from first to last with the utmost kindness and respect, especially the rattlesnakes, a dozen of which will frequently be squirming on the ground at once. It is noticeable that the Indians never pick up a rattlesnake when coiled, but always wait until it straightens itself out under the feather stroking, for it is claimed that the rattlesnake cannot strike uncoiled. At all events, when one is at its full length, the Indians ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... nearer Joan, as if intent on his own pack, began to whisper, hoarsely: "That's Jack Kells, the California road-agent. He's a gun fighter—a hell-bent rattlesnake. When I saw him last he had a rope round his neck an' was bein' led away to be hanged. I heerd afterward he was rescued by pals. Joan, if the idee comes into his head he'll kill me. I don't know what to do. For God's sake think of somethin'!... Use your ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... he saw a Rattlesnake That questioned him in Greek: He looked again, and found it was The Middle of Next Week. "The one thing I regret," he said, "Is ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... Marlin at Oakdale instantly," he rapped out. "Ranger Morton bitten rattlesnake. Send motor-car where battery was delivered this morning. May need man help ranger. Bring doctor. Tell wife get ready. Will listen ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... getting purple in the face under the impression of a contradiction. "That's what I said—Metsican. Used to call him Black Peter. I've seen him eat rattlesnake. Swallow him clean down. Like this, he would—Gollop!" Here Mr. Wells goes off into a quiet chuckle of scepticism, one finger crooked over his pipe-stem, his sightless eyes blinking at the coals. "Great big bull ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... tempter—the original Jacobs—was called in Hebrew a nachash, so I'm told. But folks don't seem to understand exactly what this nachash was. Some say it was a rattlesnake, some a straddle-bug. Old Dr. Adam Clarke, I've heard, vowed it was a monkey. They're all out of their reckoning. It's as plain as a pikestaff that it was nothing but Fried Fat cooked up to order, and it's been a-tempting weak sisters ever ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... origin, never had the most brilliant nor the most painstaking effort been able to connect with the slayers nor their instigator. He worked in the dark by hidden hands; but the death from the hands was as certain as the rattlesnake's. Certain of his victims, by luck or cleverness, seemed to have escaped sometimes as many as three or four attempts but in the end the old man's Killers ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... drawn to the rattlesnake's power, As the smoker's eye fills at the opium hour, As a horse reaches up to the manger above, As the waiting ear yearns for the whisper of love, From the arms of the Bride, iron-visaged and slow, The Captain bent down to the Head ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... said, addressing Mrs. White, "Jimmy and me thought anything about a rattlesnake would do for a temperance piece, and if you had only let Jimmy go on you would have seen what happened even a snake that et what he hadn't ought to, and please ma'am, Jimmy and me thought it might be a good lesson ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... ter fool with ye now, old rattlesnake," she called back, as she went. "Ef I wasn't in sech a hurry, I'd shore bust ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... shot, not distant, startled them. He crouched, wary as a rattlesnake about to strike. The rifle seemed almost ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... "It was not a rattlesnake, nor was it any kind of a snake such as are usually found in this part of our country, of ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... are remarkably skilled in curing the bite of venomous serpents, and have found a medicine peculiarly adapted to the bite of each species. For example, the leaf of the Rattlesnake-root (Polygala senega) is the most efficacious remedy against the bite of this dreadful animal. God has mercifully granted it to grow in the greatest plenty in all parts most infested by the rattlesnake. It is very remarkable that this herb acquires its greatest perfection just at the time ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... change had come to you, a change definite and enduring, which left your inner processes forever different from what they had been, you turned sharp to the west and rode five miles along the knife-edge Ridge Trail to where Rattlesnake Canon led you down and back ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... green hunting-shirts and carrying knives and tomahawks. "Liberty or Death," Patrick Henry's stirring words, were on their breasts, and over their heads floated a significant banner. On it was a coiled rattlesnake, with the warning motto, "Don't tread ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of the same date, 1775. It was a yellow flag with the representation of a rattlesnake coiled, ready to strike, in green, and the motto below it: 'Don't ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... the household melodies be sung, The pleasant pictures on the wall be hung— So let us hold against the hosts of night And slavery all our vantage-ground of light. Let Treason boast its savagery, and shake From its flag-folds its symbol rattlesnake, Nurse its fine arts, lay human skins in tan, And carve its pipe-bowls from the bones of man, And make the tale of Fijian banquets dull By drinking whiskey from a loyal skull,— But let us guard, till this sad war shall cease, (God grant it soon!) the graceful arts of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... tried to enter, I found it so given over to poison-oak and rattlesnakes that I did not care to pursue my investigations very far. I did not know at that time that I was quite immune from the poison of the oak and that the California rattlesnake was quite so friendly and harmless an animal as John Muir has since assured us that he is. The last time that I passed Silverado, it was accessible only by the aid ...
— The Sea Fogs • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Sassafras Myrtle Wax Tree. Vinegar Tree Poplar ("Cotton Tree") Black Oak Linden or Bass Tree Box Elder or Stink-wood Tree Cassine or Yapon. Tooth-ache Tree or Prickly Ash Passion Thorn or Honey Locust. Bearded Creeper Palmetto Bramble, Sarsaparilla Rattlesnake Herb Red Dye Plant. Flat Root Panther ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... in connection with his printing office, where he sold a strange variety of goods: legal blanks, ink, pens, paper, books, maps, pictures, chocolate, coffee, cheese, codfish, soap, linseed oil, broadcloth, Godfrey's cordial, tea, spectacles, rattlesnake root, lottery tickets, and stoves—to mention only a few of the many articles he advertised. Deborah Read, who became his wife in 1730, looked after his house, tended shop, folded and stitched pamphlets, bought rags, ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... Cystoptiris or Bladder Fern, with at least three kinds of moss complete the list of "Flowerless Plants." Three little clumps of Violets are sending out new leaves. There are a few leaves of Partridge-berry vine, a yellow Oxalis, an Orchid called Rattlesnake-Plantain, having lovely velvety leaves veined with white, a few sprigs of Mouse-ear Chickweed, and, last of all, a leaf of a Jack-in-the-Pulpit plant, the corm of which was doubtless hidden among the roots of the Ferns. So, while the cold ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various
... and welcome, if that is the best thing for society; hate him, in a certain sense, as you hate a rattlesnake, but, if you pretend to be a philosopher, recognize the fact that what you hate in him is chiefly misfortune, and that if you had been born with his villanous low forehead and poisoned instincts, and bred among ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... news came through the telephone that Bailloud's Brigade had been driven in by a big Turkish counter-attack, with a loss of 400 men and some first class officers. Most of us showed signs, I will not say of being rattled, but of having stumbled against a rattlesnake. Gouraud remained unaffectedly in possession of himself as host of a lunch party. He said, "We will not take the trenches by not taking the coffee. Let us drink it first, and then we will consider." So we drank our coffee; lit our smokes, and afterwards Gouraud, through Girodon, issued ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... bush-master (cona-couchi) unrivalled for its brilliant colours, and the deadly nature of its poison; and the labari equally poisonous, which erects its scales in a frightful manner when irritated. The rattlesnake was also to be met with, and harmless tree snakes of many species. Under the river's bank lay enormous caymen or alligators,—one lately killed measured twenty-two feet. Wild deer and the peccari hog were seen in the glades in the centre of the island; and the jaguar ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... shrouding myself as well as I was able, was soon overpowered by sleep. I did not awake till the sun had gained the meridian, and, creeping from my retreat, beheld, with some degree of terror, an enormous rattlesnake that was coiled up full in my way, and seemed determined to oppose my passage. This animal is frequent in the southern colonies, and is the most poisonous of all the reptiles that haunt the woods. He is in length from two to six feet, beautifully variegated with different ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... A thick-bodied rattlesnake crawled slowly and clumsily out from the shelter of a little ledge, his fearful eyes gleaming with deadly intentions against a ground-squirrel frisking upon the end of a mossy log, near where Captain Bob Bennett was seated, poring over a troublesome detail in the ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... name. The Pilot Black Snake or Mountain Black Snake is often taken for the Common Black Snake. Its head is larger and it is spotted with white. It is a snake frequently found in the same locations as the rattlesnake and copperhead. The Chicken Snake is fond of eggs and young chickens. Like the Fox Snake it will emit ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... as he finished the test he was making at the moment—"without a doubt it is crotalin, the venom of the rattlesnake, Crotalus horridus." ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... the party, says: "It is understood that the Seris are cannibals—at all events they eat every white man they can slay. They are cruel and treacherous beyond description. Toward the white man, their attitude is exactly the same as that of a white man toward a rattlesnake—they kill him as a matter of course, unless restrained by fear. Never do they fight in open warfare, but always lie in ambush. They are copper-colored Ishmaelites. It is their custom to murder everybody, white, ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... had seen playing coldly but triumphantly about his lips in her dreams. That smile was the feather to the arrow that pierced her, and that was piercing her at that moment—it was the cold but glittering glance of the rattlesnake, when breaking down by the poison of his eyes the power of ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... upon a rattlesnake." finished Tom. "Better keep your eyes open, Songbird, or the rattlers will be after you. They love music and poetry, ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... good old days of the Jones and Plummer trail there were no wire fences, and the sullen farmer had not yet arrived. Your cowboy at that time was a person of thrill and consequence. He wore a broad-brimmed Stetson hat, and all about it a rattlesnake skin by way of band, retaining head and rattles. This was to be potent against headaches—a malady, by the way, which swept down no cowboy save in hours emergent of a spree. In such case the snake cure didn't cure. The hat was retained ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... is a granite ridge, some two hundred feet in length, irregular in formation and height, resembling a huge molehill, extending down from the Rocky Mountain heights and being across the river's course; the "Gate" being a vertical section, the width of the stream, cut out of a spur of Rattlesnake Mountain. If his Satanic majesty, whose name it bears, had charge of the construction, apparently he intended it only as a passage-way for the river, the cut being the exact width of the river as it flows through. The greater ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... about him, trying to make something of his strange experiences, when his eye was caught by a glitter and a gleam in the grass, which caused him to spring affrightedly backward, as from the glittering eye and gleaming crest of a rattlesnake. But no serpent was there. The more the pity! Only the red moccasins, adjusted side by side, with their old air of easy self-assurance, and now in open view before him. Yet, but the moment previous his look had chanced to be resting on that very spot, and naught but the tufted ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... into a deep ravine that leads here where I am. You'll be out of sight all the way up once you hit the ravine. I'd—I'd worm along pretty spry if I was you, going down as far as the scrub oak—say, about as swift as a rattlesnake strikes—and pray any little prayers you happen to remember. And say, Pringle, before you go ... I'm rather obliged to you for coming up here; risking taking cold and all. If it'll cheer you up any I'll undertake that anyone ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... and it was quite possible that Senor Ulloa's fortunes might have suffered as severely from the war as his house had suffered from the earthquake. But when I entered the patio I was more than surprised. The only visible signs of life were lizards, darting in and out of their holes, and a huge rattlesnake sunning himself on the ledge of a broken fountain. Grass was growing between the stones; rotten doors hung on rusty hinges; there were great gaps in the roof and huge fissures in the walls, and when I called ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... find no fliers what wants to live un'neath de ground. But crawlers—bugs an' worms an' sich-like—dey mostly does live un'neath de ground, anyhow, an' de fust pusson what come seekin' house-room with Miz. Prairie-Dog was Brother Rattlesnake. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Philadelphia, and early in January, 1776, Esek Hopkins, commander in chief, stepped on board of one of them and took command. As he did so, Lieutenant John Paul Jones hoisted a yellow silk flag on which was the device of a pine tree and a coiled rattlesnake and the motto "Don't tread on me." This was the first flag ever displayed on an American man-of-war. Ice delayed the departure of the squadron; but in February it put to sea, went to the Bahama Islands, captured ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... a regular baby, Betty," exclaimed the boy, in disgust. "You'll be saying next that she can make rattlesnake's teeth sprout out ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... winding and lashing itself about his thin dark wrist and arm. It seemed a lifetime that Tony's staring eyes were riveted on the horror of the thing but it really was all over in a moment, and the Indian had choked a brutal rattlesnake, then flung it at his feet. No one spoke for a full minute, then North Eagle said, very quietly, "He curl one foot from your right hand, he lift his head to strike. I wake—I catch him just below his ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... that the Indians, about whom he had been dreaming, were upon him; his next that a rattlesnake clung to his finger; and finally, finding it to be the kitten bestowing some scratches on the hand that sought to bereave it of its prize, he uttered the latter exclamation, first in rage; but pleased that his condition was no worse, soon after called the poor ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... road now, but for the shifting of the sands, would have been marked by the bodies of dead cattle, in death scarcely more bone and parchment than for days they had been while alive. The horned toad, the cactus, the rattlesnake long since had replaced the prairie dogs of the grassy floor of the eastern Plains. A scourge of great black crickets appeared, crackling loathsomely under the wheels. Sagebrush and sand took the place ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... Wilson is the agent of the New York owner of a tract of some thirteen thousand acres of forest, including the greater portion of Mount Mitchell, a wilderness well stocked with bears and deer, and full of streams abounding in trout. It is also the playground of the rattlesnake. With all these attractions Big Tom's life is made lively in watching game poachers, and endeavoring to keep out the foraging cattle of the few neighbors. It is not that the cattle do much injury in the forest, but the looking ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... return from the voyage of the "Rattlesnake," Huxley succeeded in tracing his good Warwickshire friends again. A letter of May 11, 1852, from one of them, Miss K. Jaggard, tells how they had lost sight of the Huxleys after their departure from Coventry; how they were themselves dispersed by death, marriage, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... it, General," he said, in his bluff, abrupt fashion. "It will come rattling about their heads, and they must take to the walls behind, and these will soon give way before a steady cannonade. Or if we take the cannon up to yonder heights of Rattlesnake Hill, we can fling our round shot within their breastwork from end to end, and drive the men back like rabbits to their burrow; or we can plant a battery at the narrow mouth of Lake Champlain, and cut off their ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... men died their friends should burn their bodies and once a year make a great mourning for them and the coyote prevailed. So, presently when deer died, they burned his body, as the coyote had decreed and after a year they made a great mourning for him. But the moon created the rattlesnake and caused it to bite the coyote's son, so that he died. Now, though the coyote had been willing to burn the deer's relations, he refused to burn his own son. Then the moon said unto him, "This is your own rule. You would ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... the Amerindian tribes reverence the rattlesnake as grandfather and king of snakes who is able to give fair winds or cause tempest. Among the Hopi (Moqui) of Arizona the serpent figures largely in one of the dances. The rattlesnake was worshipped in the Natchez temple of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... owned a small red cottage there, which she was ready to lease to Hawthorne for a nominal rent. Lowell was going there on account of his wife, a delicate flower-like nature already beginning to droop. Doctor Holmes was going on account of Lowell, and perhaps with the expectation of seeing a rattlesnake; Fields was going on account of Lowell and Holmes. Mrs. Frances Kemble, already the most distinguished of Shakespearian readers, had a summer cottage there; and it was hoped that in such company Hawthorne would at last find the element to which ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... except for food. Man must first become peaceful, before animals will lose their fierceness. Not long after this instruction had been given, a brother became very tired by traveling and lay down on the ground to sleep. When he awoke, what should he see but a rattlesnake coiled up not more than a foot away from his head. Just then some of the brethren came up and wanted to kill the snake; but the brother said, "No, I'll protect him, for he and I have had a good nap together." He remembered what Joseph ...
— A Young Folks' History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • Nephi Anderson
... the subtlest appeal is in the sense that warns us of humanness in the way the design spreads into the flare of the bowl. There used to be an Indian woman at Olancha who made bottle-neck trinket baskets in the rattlesnake pattern, and could accommodate the design to the swelling bowl and flat shoulder of the basket without sensible disproportion, and so cleverly that you might own one a year without thinking how it was done; but Seyavi's baskets had a touch beyond cleverness. The weaver and ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... a figure on horse-back appeared at the head of the arroyo. It was Red Bill himself. On his ankle was a bandage, but his amazing vitality had left no other traces of the bite of the rattlesnake. ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... business, and we will talk about California. By the way, I shall only conduct the exercises, for I feel rather embarrassed by the fact that I've never killed, or been killed by, a bear, never been bitten by a tarantula, poisoned by a rattlesnake, assaulted by a stage- robber, nor anything of that sort. You have all read my story of crossing the plains. I even did that in a comparatively easy and unheroic fashion. I only wish, my dear girls and boys, that we had with us some one of the brave and energetic men and women ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... p. 28). In Dr. 33b, 34b and 35b, the serpent is in the act of devouring him, or he is rising up out of the serpent's jaws, as is plainly indicated also by the hieroglyphs, for they contain the group given in Fig. 10, which is composed of the rattle of the rattlesnake and the opened hand as a symbol of seizing and absorption. God B himself is pictured with the body of a serpent in Dr. 35b and 36a (compare No. 2 of the Mythological Animals). He likewise occurs sitting on the serpent and in Dr. 66a he is twice (1st and ...
— Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts • Paul Schellhas
... West are now being cut up into small farms. The nester has come, and come to stay. Gone is the buffalo, the Indian warwhoop, the free grass of the open plain;—even the stinging lizard, the horned frog, the centipede, the prairie dog, the rattlesnake, are fast disappearing. Save in some of the secluded valleys of southern New Mexico, the old-time round-up is no more; the trails to Kansas and to Montana have become grass-grown or lost in fields of waving grain; ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... say; he is not handsome, certainly not beautiful as flowers and the stars and women are, but he has another sort of beauty, I think, such a beauty as made Victor Hugo's monster, Gwynplaine, fascinating, or gives a certain sort of charm to a banded rattlesnake. He is not much like the dove-eyed setter over whom we shot woodcock this afternoon, but to me he is the fairest object on the face of the earth, this gaunt, brindled Ulm. There's such a thing as ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... as the season progressed, coastwise operations in this quarter became increasingly hazardous for both parties. On October 22, Hull wrote that neither the "Enterprise" nor the "Rattlesnake" could cruise much longer. The enemy still maintained his grip, in virtue of greater size and numbers. Ten days later comes the report of a convoy, with one of the brigs, driven into port by a frigate; that the enemy appear almost every ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... heart; he would have struck back as madly as the blind rattlesnake but for the craven ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... scornful eyes drift slowly over him. "I might pretend to misunderstand you. But I won't. You may have your answer now. I am not afraid of you, for since you are a bully you must be a coward. I saw a rattlesnake last week in the hills. It reminded me of some one I have seen. I'll leave you ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... him over the jump at Seven Rivers. You see this Rattlesnake—they calls him Rattlesnake Bark in them later years—is bunked down in one of these yere jim-crow, barn-board hotels. Thar's a resoundin' form of guest in the adjoinin' room, snorin' to beat four kings an' a ace. Rattlesnake ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... instructions into him for some time, he said he might go, until his attendance was required. But Andy moved not; he stood with his eyes fixed by a sort of fascination on some object that seemed to rivet them with the same unaccountable influence which the rattlesnake exercises over ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... to death. I've reconstructed every cell in my body since I hit the beach at Dyea. My flesh is as stringy as whipcords, and as bitter and mean as the bite of a rattlesnake. A few months ago I'd have patted myself on the back to write such words, but I couldn't have written them. I had to live them first, and now that I'm living them there's no need to write them. I'm the real, bitter, stinging goods, and no scrub of a mountaineer can put anything over ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... almost unridable, and would have bucked to death any but a Californian. Sometimes he lived on cactus fruit and the dried meat he had brought with him; occasionally he shot a rabbit. Again he had but the flesh of the rattlesnake roasted over coals. But ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... my dear. You have never been poor," replied Mr. Sheldon, coolly. "I don't suppose I am as much afraid of a rattlesnake as the poor wretches who are accustomed to see one swinging by his tail from the branch of a tree any day in the course of their travels. I have only a vague idea that a cobra de capello is an unpleasant customer; but depend upon ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... down and his head half buried in his overcoat. Jim noticed the reclining figure casually, but thought no more about the man, though his interest might have been aroused if he had chanced to turn quickly for the desperado had raised his head with the quickness of a rattlesnake and his beady eye was fixed with malevolent ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... Chamber of Deputies has organized itself into a chapel. Treasurer and secretary, M. Laborie. Contractor for burials, M. de La Bourdonnaye. Grave-digger, M. Duplessis-Grenedan. Superintendent, M. de Bouville, and in his capacity of vice-president—rattlesnake. Dispenser of holy water (promise-maker), M. de Vitrolles. General of the Capuchins, M. de Villele; and he deserves the post for his voice. Grand almoner, M. de Marcellus, who gives a portion of his own estate to the poor. Bellringers, M. ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of this large family; some, like the rattlesnake, cannot climb or swim, but crawl along the ground, the terror of unwary travellers who may tread upon them in the dim forest-paths; others are Water-snakes; some, like the Boa and Python, are dreaded, although not venomous, because, of their enormous strength, ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... and look down. His fellows intent on their conversation, were several minutes coming up; but when they did so they witnessed a veritable case of fascination—for the young man was looking intently into the eyes of a large rattlesnake, coiled at his feet; nor could the voices of all his friends arouse him. Being jerked back with some violence, he instantly recovered his senses, but seemed to be puzzled to recall the circumstances connected with his first view of the snake. After a mental effort he explained, while ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... instant Carlos fired. Running forward, we found that he had blown off the head of a huge rattlesnake which his keen eye had detected in the grass, though the rest of us had failed to see it. It proved that his warning was not unnecessary. The creature was over seven feet long, and a bite from its fangs would ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... clearing, and the raspberry-fields are merry with children's voices. The familiar birds and butterflies linger below with them, and in the upper and more sacred depths the wood-thrush chants his litany and the brown mountain butterflies hover among the scented vines. Higher yet rises the "Rattlesnake Ledge," spreading over one side of the summit a black avalanche of broken rock, now overgrown with reindeer-moss and filled with tufts of the smaller wild geranium. Just below this ledge,—amid a dark, dense track of second-growth forest, masked here ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... at the sea, while she thought: "I am sure some awful tragedy is here underneath; it is not only his broken ankle and his illness that has made him such a wreck. I wish I could help them. I would not care a snap for Cis, who is a rattlesnake ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... Oliver. He was well aware of the excellent qualities which the hunter possessed, and he was familiar also with the intense bitterness with which Sam looked upon the Indians. For him they possessed no good qualities. They were simply enemies of the whites and to be exterminated like the rattlesnake and the panther. He recognized no feeling of patriotism on their part, and, because the method of their warfare was cruel, he judged ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... found that he had got into a nest, so to speak, of evil spirits. Before he had been two days with them, he would have given all he possessed, or ever hoped to possess, in order to escape from the "Rattlesnake," ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... went up to Salt Lake I met a little rattlesnake, He'd e't so much of jelly cake, It made his little ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... sentiments beyond egotism, and a family pride which mainly, if not entirely, sprang from it. Such a heart as Garcia's, what a place to nestle in! Such a creature as Coronado seeking comfort in such a breast as his uncle's was very much like a rattlesnake warming himself in a hole of ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... the unmistakable warning of a rattlesnake that was somewhere near him, and on the very point of striking. Precisely where it was, it was impossible to determine with any certainty; but there was no time to consider the matter. It seemed to him in that brief second he devoted to thought that the venomous reptile ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... is called an ancestor and is said to have turned into a lion at his death. Fluctuating opinions (some persons holding to direct descent from a nonhuman object, others to friendly relations between it and the ancestor) are reported in Sumatra, Borneo, and the Moluccas. The Hurons regarded the rattlesnake as a kinsman of their ancestor. The origin of the clan or family is referred to marriage with an animal by the Borneo Dyaks and various tribes on the African Gold Coast, and to marriage with a plant by some of the ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... signal-lights are so remote that we only catch their flash when it has been a myriad of years on its way. For that Supreme One is not a God of pity or mercy—not as we recognize these qualities. Think of a God of mercy who would create the typhus germ, or the house-fly, or the centipede, or the rattlesnake, yet these are all His handiwork. They are a part of the Infinite plan. The minister is careful to explain that all these tribulations are sent for a good purpose; but he hires a doctor to destroy the fever germ, and he kills the rattlesnake when he ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... mentioned the wild turkey—which, indeed, was introduced to Europe from Mexico—partridges, quail, and wild pigeons. The armadillo, beaver, martin, otter, and others are among the Mexican fauna. Of noxious reptiles and insects the rattlesnake is much in evidence, as well as the tarantula, centipede, alacran, or scorpion, and varieties of ants. Of birds of beautiful plumage the Mexican tropics abound with life, and they are famed for their fine feathers, and as songsters. They are an example ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... lightly. "I'm all right, I never felt better. Why, I could whip a rattlesnake right now, and give ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... things a secret they consider a sacred duty. They even refuse to make known the medicinal properties of certain plants, while they are willing, provided they feel a liking for you, or are asked by a person whom they respect or love, to apply these plants, prepared by them, to heal the bite of a rattlesnake, tarantula, or any of the many venomous animals that abound in ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... bludgeon man, bully, rough, hooligan, larrikin[obs3], dangerous classes, ugly customer; thief &c. 792. cockatrice, scorpion, hornet. snake, viper, adder, snake in the grass; serpent, cobra, asp, rattlesnake, anaconda|!. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... "tossed me about the room with his fist on my throat," says Hirsch; "offering to have pity nevertheless, if I would take back the Jewels, and return all writings." [Narrative (in—Tantale—).] Eyes glancing like a rattlesnake's, as we perceive; and such a phenomenon as Hirsch had not expected, this Christmas! In short, the matter has here fairly exploded, and is blazing aloft, as a mass of intricate fuliginous ruin, not to be deciphered henceforth. Such a scene for Chasot on the Christmas-day at Berlin! ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... only a few yards below when, at the last sharp twist in the descent, the still air vibrated with a sibilant rattle. Slade's pony snorted and jumped sideways, leaving Lennon a clear view of the big diamond-back rattlesnake that lay coiled in the middle of the trail. The gaping jaws of the angry snake and the peculiar billowing of its body so fixed Lennon's gaze that he only half glimpsed the final stumble of ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... the master word of the cult. The rattlesnake is "deadly." The copperhead and moccasin are "deadly." So is the wholly mythical puff adder. In hardly less degree is the tarantula "deadly," while varying lethal capacities are ascribed to the centipede, the scorpion, the kissing-bug, and sundry ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... to the Culpepper Minute-men, who wore green hunting shirts with "Liberty or Death" on the bosom in white letters, and who carried a banner which displayed a coiled rattlesnake with the motto, "Don't tread on me." He took a part in the battle of Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth; he shared the hardships of Valley Forge; in fact saw almost continuous service from the time he enlisted at the ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... listen; you've had a scare, but there is only two snakes around here that is pisen. One is the copperhead. You can tell him by his bright copper-colored head and his strawberry body; the other is the rattlesnake. You can tell him by his rattle. But if you don't be careful foolin' around in the woods and dreamin' and not watchin' what you're doin', one of them will bite you. Now look here, you go home and get in the wood ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... voice that those who heard it say sounded like a rattlesnake's hiss in a refrigerator, Rogers replied: "All meetings where I sit as director vote first and ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... I firmly. "When I want to follow up Cleopatra's fashion, and commit suicide, I am goin' to hire a rattlesnake, and take my poison as she did, on ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... clear down to Amos Judson's house, because I thought that was the best way, if it was an Injun. She isn't afraid of anything else. She's the only girl that can ride Tell Mapleson's pony, and only O'mie and Tell and I among the boys can ride him. And she killed the big rattlesnake that nearly had Jim Conlow, killed it with a hoe. And she can climb where no other girl dares to, on the bluff below town toward the Hermit's Cave. But she's just as 'fraid of an Injun! I went to hunt ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... would eventually become a billiard-marker; and might ultimately be hanged, with general approval. If the man, in his unclipped proportions, did actually exist, it would be right that a combination should be formed to wipe him out of creation. He should be put down,—as you would put down a tiger or a rattlesnake, if found at liberty somewhere in the Midland Counties. A more hateful character, to all who possess a grain of moral discernment, could not even be imagined. And it need not be shown that the conception of such a character is worthy only of a baby. However many years the man who deliberately and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... far, when Sandy gave a wild whoop of alarm, jumping about six feet backward as he yelled, "A rattlesnake!" Sure enough, an immense snake was sliding out from under a mass of brush that the boy had disturbed as he gathered an armful of dry branches and twigs. Dropping his burden, Sandy shouted, "Kill him! ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... so innocently had two meanings. He might have meant that the cawing of the crows indicated that they were objecting to a rattlesnake sunning on some rock. Also he might have meant to say that their short, querulous cawing betrayed the presence ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... fifteen to twenty minutes, until some symptoms of intoxication are experienced, then cease using it. The cure will be complete as soon as enough has been taken to produce even slight symptoms of intoxication. It is remarkable how much alcohol a patient suffering from the poison of the Rattlesnake ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... Colonel Stevens, "Old Pecksniff," as the irreverent youngsters called him, the commander at Fort Emory on the outskirts of Gate City, telling of a tremendous storm that had swept the Laramie plains and the range of the Medicine Bow and Rattlesnake Hills, just after Lieutenant Dean had been sent forth with a small party of troopers to push through to Warrior Gap with a big sum of money, ten thousand dollars in cash, for the payment of contractors and their men at the new post, ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... rest on the prophecy of the bridge. Lean not your hand on it, for it is as if you put it forth to lean it on a coiled rattlesnake." ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... mouth of Marie, whom Jake Rule, Kansas Casey, and four other men were taking to the calaboose. They were doing their duty as gently as possible, and Marie was making it as difficult for them as possible. She was as mad as a teased rattlesnake, and not a man of her six captors but bore the marks of fingernails, ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... natives teeth, was it not that they could pull out the upper and lower incisors, file them in points, and curve them in sharp fangs like the fangs of a rattlesnake? If she has placed nails at the end of the fingers, is it not that they may grow so immoderately that the use of the hand is rendered almost impossible? If the skin, black or brown, covers the human frame, is it not so as to zebra it by "temmbos" or tattooings representing trees, ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... kill twice dead a rattlesnake, And off his scaly skin to take, And through his head to drive a stake, And every bone within him break, And of his flesh mincemeat to make, To burn, to sear, to boil, and bake, Then in a heap the whole to rake, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... me. "That single trail I found back yonder day before yesterday was Santan's running on ahead of us to poison the water for us and then steal a horse and make his way back to the mountains. An Apache can live on this cactus-covered sand the same as a rattlesnake. He fixed the upper spring and came down here to drink. Only Beverly's conscience saved him here. Heaven knows how Fred Ramer got out here. He may have come with some Mexicans on ahead of us and left them here to drop his poison in this lower spring. Then he turned back ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... strongholds. It was a fortified village, built on the summit of a mountain, and accessible only at one point. The battle lasted three hours, the Indians being finally driven off with the loss of sixty men. It was reported in San Jose that the Indians had surprised a company of seventy-two men, on Rattlesnake Creek, and murdered them all. In consequence of these occurrences, the Governor dispatched Col. Johnson to the scene of disturbance, ordered out 200 men, and applied to Gen. Smith for the assistance of the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... when they came upon them, but would pass by on the other side of the path, believing that if they were to kill a serpent, the reptile's kindred would destroy some of their brethren, friends, or relations in return. So the Seminole Indians spared the rattlesnake, because they feared that the soul of the dead rattlesnake would incite its kinsfolk to take vengeance. The Cherokee regard the rattlesnake as the chief of the snake tribe and fear and respect him accordingly. Few Cherokee will venture to kill ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... as though I had thrust into his hand a drop of vitriol, and, leaping in the air, threw the ice on the floor and dared any one to touch it. From the "personal" boys who had travelled to Matadi the Mission boys had heard of ice. But none had ever seen it. They approached it as we would a rattlesnake. Each touched it and then sprang away. Finally one, his eyes starting from his head, cautiously stroked the inoffensive brick and then licked his fingers. The effect was instantaneous. He assured the others it was "good chop," and each of them sat hunched about it on his heels, stroking ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... of the prowler—and that is the end of both animals. For Unk Wunk has a weapon that no prowler of the woods ever calculates upon. His broad, heavy tail is armed with hundreds of barbs, smaller but more deadly than those on his back; and he swings this weapon with the vicious sweep of a rattlesnake. It is probably this power of driving his barbs home by a lightning blow of his tail that has given rise to the curious delusion that Unk Wunk can shoot his quills at a distance, as if he were filled with compressed air—which is, of course, a harmless absurdity that ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... these profitable beasts we have also in this country lions, bears, wolves, foxes, and particularly very many snakes, which are large and as long as eight, ten, and twelve feet. Among others, there is a sort of snake, which we call rattlesnake, from a certain object which it has back upon its tail, two or three fingers' breadth long, and has ten or twelve joints, and with this it makes a noise like the crickets. Its color is variegated much like our large brindled bulls. These snakes have very sharp teeth in ...
— Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 • Various
... instructive prophet. John Bull is asleep, or rather in a vision; the cunning demon, Speculation, blowing a thousand bright bubbles about him. Meanwhile the rooks are busy at his fob, a knave has cut a cruel hole in his pocket, a rattlesnake has coiled safe round his feet, and will in a trice swallow Bull, chair, money and all; the rats are at his corn-bags (as if, poor devil, he had corn to spare); his faithful dog is bolting his leg-of-mutton—nay, ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a cord was passed, so that it could be worn pendent from the neck; the jaw of a bear designed to be worn in the same manner as the eagle's claw, and supplied with a cord to suspend it around the neck; two rattlesnake-skins, one of these had fourteen rattles upon it, these were neatly folded up; some vegetable colors done up in leaves; a small bunch of deer sinews, resembling cat-gut in appearance; several bunches of thread and twine, two and three threaded, ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt
... earth, and sea, and sky, hill and plain, spread out like an ever-changing picture before the eyes, while to the ears there came no sound more harsh than the shrill notes of the woodland birds. There came also the noise of the rattlesnake very often, Mr Stevenson says, but they did not realise its sinister significance until almost the end of their sojourn there, when their attention was drawn to it, and certainly no ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... stiff back, black beard, short hair, loud voice, and buff waistcoat, people of fashion, on the contrary, stand in continual awe; his tongue is to them a rattlesnake's tail wagging only as a signal for them to get out of his way; they quiver like an aspen at the sound of his voice, and for their own particular, would rather hear the sharpening of a saw: if such a one courts their acquaintance, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... we were afraid of snakes, but soon learned that most of them were harmless. The only venomous species seen on our farm were the rattlesnake and the copperhead, one of each. David saw the rattler, and we both saw the copperhead. One day, when my brother came in from his work, he reported that he had seen a snake that made a queer buzzy noise with its tail. This was the only rattlesnake ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... faithful slave in all the Southland than old Uncle Snake-bit Bob. He had been bitten by a rattlesnake when he was a boy, and the limb had to be amputated, and its place was supplied with a wooden peg. There were three or four other "Bobs" on the plantation, and he was called Snake-bit to distinguish him. Though lame, and sick a good deal of his time, his life had not been wasted, nor had he ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... have been just as well if the rattlesnake coiled in his path at that moment had ended his existence, but the snake was indeed an honorable highwayman, and sounded a gentlemanly warning in the nick of time. Collins would have killed it for its pains, but killing had ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... vindictive eye of the old man struck du Tillet, whose attention had first been attracted by a watch-chain from which hung a pound of jingling gew-gaws, and by a green coat with a collar whimsically cocked up, which gave the old man the semblance of a rattlesnake. The banker approached the usurer to find out how and why he had ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... hostage—he knew not why—on a galloping horse in the dust of the prairie—far beyond the seas! It was only when he saw her cheek flush and pale, when he saw her staring at him with helpless, frightened, but fascinated eyes,—the eyes of the fluttering bird under the spell of the rattlesnake,—that he drew his breath and turned bewildered away. "And do you know, dear," she said with naive simplicity to her sister that evening, "that although he was an American, and everybody says that they don't care at all for those poor Indians, he ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... Sunday to my surprise I saw one of the men reading a book. On looking at the title, it read: 'The Life of Rattlesnake Pete,' and another man had a book lying on his blankets, entitled 'The Adventures of Coyote Bill.' Gambling was their favorite pastime. It was one round of card playing nights and Sundays. When I first went to work on the Lonsdale ranch, the boss put me to cutting oak wood. After I ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... little head out of the door of the kennel, and was just about to creep out, when right in front of him in the path he saw a snake. He knew in a moment just what sort of a snake it was, and how dangerous it was; he knew it was a rattlesnake, and that if it bit Ada or him, they would probably die. For Marland had spent two summers on his papa's big ranch in Kansas, and he had been told over and over again, if he ever saw a snake to run away from it as fast as he could, and this snake just in front of him was making the queer little ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... don't get the rattlesnake for this!" swore Neil between his teeth. "Ain't there nothin' I can ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... he heard a vicious, locust-like whir, whose meaning he recognized. An immense rattlesnake was in the bushes, and Fred had descended almost upon it. But for the tremendous effort of Jack he would have dropped squarely upon the velvety body, with consequences too frightful to be thought of; but his great leap carried him ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... deer," acknowledged Ware, reluctantly, "though I hate to think that rattlesnake is out for anything legitimate. I will say he's a good hunter; ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... irritated. "Doctor! You know these French Canadians. They're worse scared of a doctor than of the evil one himself. Pete's usin' some old woman's stuff on his wounds,—bear's grease, rattlesnake oil, catnip tea,—what do I know? I can't ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... Him sometime do that. But no. Mister snake he go sleep in tent which is reserve for his superior. I say nothing, for I do not wish to alarm the young ladies. That is why I hold the dog Mumble so tight, for he small eye see snake too, an' fool dog wish to go fight him. Rattlesnake soon eat Mumble up—eh? But never mind; there is no worry. I am Wampus, an' I am here. You go to bed now, an' sleep ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... Mo-hawk; bludgeon man, bully, rough, hooligan, larrikin^, dangerous classes, ugly customer; thief &c 792. cockatrice, scorpion, hornet. snake, viper, adder, snake in the grass; serpent, cobra, asp, rattlesnake, anaconda^. canker-worm, wire-worm; locust, Colorado beetle; alacran^, alligator, caymon^, crocodile, mosquito, mugger, octopus; torpedo; bane &c 663. cutthroat &c (killer) 461. cannibal; anthropophagus^, anthropophagist^; bloodsucker, vampire, ogre, ghoul, gorilla, vulture; gyrfalcon^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... reply, but pointed to a corner near the door. I looked in the direction indicated, and by the dim light of the lamp saw to my horror—a rattlesnake. I looked around for Dick; he was leaning against the wall, his face ghastly pale. Before I was aware of it Dick had kicked in the strong door. Osborne must have had the same idea for he too rushed for the door. They both reached the threshold ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... by an alligator, and six had given out on the march and probably perished. The survivors had encountered interesting experiences. They had crossed the Colorado on a raft. Nika, La Salle's favorite Shawanoe hunter, who had followed him to France and thence to Texas, had been bitten by a rattlesnake, but had recovered. Among the Cenis Indians, a branch of the Caddo family, which includes the famed Pawnees, they met with the friendliest welcome and saw plenty of horses, silver lamps, swords, muskets, money, and other articles, all Spanish, which these ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... this time, about which he talked loudly, with his mouth full, all dinner time, was the building of the Tunkhannock, Rattlesnake and Young-womans-town railroad, which would not only be a great highway to the west, but would open to market inexhaustible coal-fields and untold millions of lumber. The plan of ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... rattlesnake) restrains the water by coiling itself into a sac to hold up the rain and so prevent it from reaching the earth. In the various American codices this episode is depicted in as great a variety of forms as the Vedic poets of India ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... this archer, who deliberately drew an arrow from over his shoulder and fitted it against the string of his bow. The fact that the missile was undoubtedly coated at the end with a virus more deadly than that of the rattlesnake or cobra was enough to render the would-be friend uncomfortable ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, commanded by the late Captain Owen Stanley, during the years 1846-50, including Discoveries and Surveys in New Guinea, the Louisiade Archipelago, &c. &c. By John Macgillivray, F.R.G.S., Naturalist to the Expedition. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... which she obtained from her mother. The circumstance attracted the attention of the mother, who desired her husband to follow the child, and observe what she did with it. On coming to the child, he found her engaged in feeding several snakes, called yellow heads, a species of rattlesnake. He immediately took her away and proceeded to the house for his gun, and returning, killed two of them at one shot, and another a few days after. The child called these reptiles in the manner of calling chickens; and when her father observed, if she continued the practice they would ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... not quite hittin' the mark, either. A rattlesnake rattles before he strikes. I say mean people are more like the copperhead, that hides in the grass and leaves that are like its own color, and when you ain't expectin' it and without any warnin', he'll ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... horror as a large moccasin snake darted across his path; but seeing the loathsome creature glide away to a safe distance, he went on, following the guide. Nevertheless, a chill ran down his spine when he thought how narrowly he had escaped stumbling full tilt upon the reptile, which, unlike the rattlesnake, never gives ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... horse before four large holes and pointed at them with his riding-whip. "Gopher in that one," he declared without hesitation. "Mr. Gopher is away from the next one, out getting his dinner likely; a coon lives in the next, but he is away from home. Rattlesnake, and a big one, lives in the fourth, but he is also away from home, I ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... of that day of horror, he could scarcely stand. He had to catch himself now and then, and lean against a building and get his bearings. Most of the men, when they came out, made straight for a saloon—they seemed to place fertilizer and rattlesnake poison in one class. But Jurgis was too ill to think of drinking—he could only make his way to the street and stagger on to a car. He had a sense of humor, and later on, when he became an old hand, he used to think it fun ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... had late become the terror of foot-passengers in London crowds. My aunt pointed with a pride that was colonial to the fine light which the towns-people had erected on Beacon Hill; and told me pretty legends of Rattlesnake Hill that fired the desire to explore those inland dangers. I noticed that the rubble-faced houses showed lanterns in iron clamps above most of the doorways. My kinsman's house stood on the verge of the wilds-rough stone ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... horned toad creeping along the sand, The rattlesnake asleep beneath the sage, Have now a subtle fatal charm. In their sultry calm, their love of heat, I read once more the burning page Of nature under cloudless skies. O pitiless and splendid land! Mine eyelids close, my lips are dry By ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... no use talking to you. You call yourself Jason because of your yellow hair, or your love for the golden fleece; but your old comrades call you 'Rattlesnake,' and you have its ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... trying for a good many hours to balance the right and wrong of this matter in my mind, and my reason had insisted to my inclination that, if I had opportunity, I must kill Pemaou without warning. We respect no code in dealing with a rattlesnake, and I must use this Huron like the vermin that he was. So I ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... to leave the ourang-outang behind," Marble carelessly observed, as he took his own seat, after assisting in getting the boat round, with its head towards the bay. "I would rather have a rattlesnake for a pet, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... great danger for generally the little reptiles are tame indoors, but out of doors in the sunshine they become cross and ugly and their bite is more dangerous than that of a rattlesnake. ...
— Little Tales of The Desert • Ethel Twycross Foster
... pet, eh, Robert?" said Colonel Cummings, as they entered. He backed up to his stove and surveyed Squaw Charley good-naturedly. "Let me see, now: You've run the scale from a devil's darning-needle to a baby wolf. Next thing, I suppose, you'll be introducing us to a youngish rattlesnake." ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... Now, a rattlesnake is poisonous, but he gives fair warning; a swamp moccasin lies in wait for the unwary and strikes without sign or sound. Into Hiram Strong's troubled mind came the thought that Mr. Pepper was striking like his ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... the way to it led up a shallow draw past the cattle corral. Grandmother called my attention to a stout hickory cane, tipped with copper, which hung by a leather thong from her belt. This, she said, was her rattlesnake cane. I must never go to the garden without a heavy stick or a corn-knife; she had killed a good many rattlers on her way back and forth. A little girl who lived on the Black Hawk road was bitten on the ankle and had been sick ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... a little boy I suppose his mother used to call him Davy. He wasn't bad then; just a little boy to be cuddled and petted. Perhaps he was married. Perhaps he had a sweetheart waiting for him outside, and praying for him. And they snuffed his life out as if he had been a rattlesnake." ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... daily adventures, and brought to her the occasional results of his single-handed combats with birds and beasts. He offered to dig up a tarantula's nest for her and to catch and tame for her pleasure a side-winder rattlesnake, or, if she preferred, a golden oriole or a mocking-bird. It did n't make any difference to him whether she chose a rattlesnake or an oriole; whatever she wanted him to do, he was ready to attempt. And Madge looked and listened ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... handkerchief and studying a bold hump of jumbled bowlders and ledges, evidently considering whether it was worth while toiling up to the top. A little below him, the Native Son was flinging rocks at a rattlesnake with the vicious precision of frank abhorrence. Down in the canon bottom Big Medicine and Pink were holding the horses on the shady side of the gorge, and the smoke of their cigarettes floated lazily upward with the jumbled monotone ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower |
