"Rattler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... t'other—the West, I mean. The islands and mountains we passed and went into in the Rattler; your honor was only a young gentleman then, but was too much aloft to miss the sight of anything—and all along ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... one day I dropped one and he bit me on the leg, and it's been bad that same month ever since. Would you like to see the bite? There's the pattern of a diamond-back just as plain as anything, so I know it must have been a rattler." ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... Red Cloud wants 'em: Shunkalutah, him the Red Dog; Brave Bear, Montaohetekah; Setting Bear, Maktohutakah; Rock Bear, Live Bear, Long Bear, Short Bear, Little Bear, Yellow Bear, and Bear Skin, Keyalutah, Red Fly—Shoo Fly! Dahsanowee, White Cow Rattler, Pahgee, Shunkmonetoohakah, Shatonsapah, Maktohashena, Kokepah, Ocklehelutah, ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... cried the emperor, with a sudden burst of feeling, "you would rattler be obliged to the man whom you loved than to a stranger. Oh, if you but loved me, there would be no question of 'mine or thine' between us! It is said—I have betrayed myself, and I need stifle my passion no longer; for I love you, beautiful ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... good imitation of a—diamond-backed rattler, mother! But come on over to the table, son! She isn't as dangerous as she sounds!" The ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... steer, its bleached bones ghastly in the sunlight, but she smiled when she saw a sea of soap-weed with yellow blossoms already unfolding, and she looked long at a mile-wide section of mesquite, dark and inviting in the distance. She saw a rattler cross the trail in front of the buckboard and draw its loathsome length into a coil at the base of some crabbed yucca, and thereafter she made grimaces at each of the ugly plants they passed. It was new to her, ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... with chills and fever coursing over him ad libitum. He did not want to waken and frighten the boy. He managed to slip his arm out without disturbing the sleeper. But now! There wasn't a club around except the short sticks of the fire. A two-foot stick is not the proper equipment for rattler hunting, except to those born with nerves so strong that they do not hesitate to catch Mr. Crotalus by the tail and snap ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... from the swamp to the woods, when suddenly a warm, yielding, coiling thing slipped under Mickey's feet. With a wild cry he leaped across the body of a big rattlesnake that had been coiled in the path. As he arose, clear cut against the light launched the ugly head and wide jaws of the rattler, then came the sickening buzz of its rattles in mad recoil ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... don't generally kill a little gopher or a little owl that's settin' up tendin' to his business, because you ain't scared of them. But you will go off of the trail to kill a rattler, a side-winder, because he's able to kill you if he takes a notion. Correct. Now a tenderfoot totin' a gun is dangerouser than any rattler that ever hugged hisself to sleep in the sun—and most fellas travelin' ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... tribe, Two Guns, White Calf (the son of old White Calf, the great chief who dropped dead in the White House during President Cleveland's administration), Medicine Owl and Curly Bear and Big Spring and Bird Plume and Wolf Plume and Bird Rattler and Bill Shute and Stabs-by-Mistake and Eagle Child and Many Tail-Feathers—and ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... hair ropes for exercise. One morning I woke up and there was a crawler on my chest. 'For God's sake, Pete!' says I to Antelope Pete, who was rolled up next me, 'come take my friend away!' and I didn't holler very loud, neither. Pete was chain lightning in pants, and he grabs Mr. Rattler by the tail and snaps his neck, but I felt lonesome in my inside till dinner time. You bet! I know just how you feel, exactly. I didn't have a man's sized night's rest whilst we was in ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... for another strike at Barbara's horse, which had almost reached the place before Eleanor screamed. The whole occurrence was so unexpected and sudden that Barbara had not seen the swift flash of cinnamon-red and dark diamond-patterned rattler. ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... aim?" said Kiddie. "Not very complimentary to my shootin'. Why did I let it go loose? Well, I jest notioned it would be some cowardly ter shoot while I held the brute that way. Beside, I didn't want ter shatter the skull too much. Biggest rattler I've seen—seven feet long if it's an inch, and worth preservin'. Say, those bees look like givin' us trouble. Best hustle through with breakfast, and then get along to the traps. The honey c'n wait. That sulphur of yours is goin' ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... these letters. Three of his most enduring books were written over the next decade, "The Young Fur Traders", "Ungava", "The Hudson Bay Company", and were based on his experiences with the HBC. In this period he also wrote "The Coral island" and "Martin Rattler", both of these taking place in places never visited by Ballantyne. Having been chided for small mistakes he made in these books, he resolved always to visit the places he wrote about. With these books ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... was after midnight when the blowing of a hoarse buffalo horn announced the approach of those who were to perform the fifth dance, the tcòhanoai alili or sun show. There were twenty-four choristers and a rattler. There were two character dancers, who were arrayed, like so many others, in little clothing and much paint. Their heads and arms were adorned with plumes of the war eagle, their necks with rich necklaces of genuine coral, ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... was not all gone and he knew just where to look, he saw the rattler slipping away across the sand. He thrust his gun down as close as he dared and with the first shot blew the sinister, flat head off the ugly thick body. Then he went forward, calling soothingly ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... "down in yonder you're liable to meet up with a rattler too smart for your whip, account of his freckles. 'Twon't do you no harm to spend a few ca'tridges, so you'll ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... The Rattler was at length tried in a water tournament with the paddle-steamer Alecto, and signally defeated her. Francis Pettit Smith, like Gulliver, may be said to have dragged the whole British fleet after ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... makes it dead wrong for you to take a hand. If it's necessary to get Marsh, I'll do it alone. With him out of the way, I think you can make a go of it. He's like a rattler—somebody's got to stomp on him. Now I'm off for the trap. Let me know what the ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... door, fashioned in one great slab from a forest tree. His welcome was an angry whir, and a huge yellow rattler lay coiled within, his head reared to strike. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... again bestirred itself: Samuel and all his Sons —how many, their mother only knows —and under their immediate auspices, and partly, I think, at their expense, the British government was induced to send the sloop-of-war Rattler on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South Sea. Commanded by a naval Post-Captain, the Rattler made a rattling voyage of it, and did some service; how much does not appear. But this is not all. In 0084 , the same house fitted out a ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... matter of public comment in Delhi, while the knowing ones winked significantly at the almost triumphal departure of Madame Berthe Louison, whose special car and ample retinue made her a modern European Queen of Sheba. "Tell you what, fellows," said "Rattler" Murray, otherwise known as "Red Eric, of the Eighth Lancers," "the old Commissioner will return superbly 'improved and illustrated' with her, a new edition of the standard old work. You see, there's a French Consul-General at Calcutta, and then and there the ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... bad they were here at the Great Falls—I think they feared them more than they did the white bears or the rattlesnakes; and they had plenty of them all. In one day Lewis was chased into the river by a grizzly, charged by three buffalo bulls, and nearly bitten by a rattler!" ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... the first settlers—if he hear a rattle behind him, you will see him gently turn his head; if he be passing a tavern at the time he pays little attention, and refrains from laying the whip upon the "creatures," seeing that he is morally certain that the rattler will stop to take "a grog" at the tavern; but if no such invitation present itself, and especially if there be a tavern two or three miles a-head, he begins immediately to make provision against the consequences of the impatience of his rival, who, he is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... the thing, hellish fine. Well done. Compleat. Dashing. In a handsome stile. A bang up cove; a dashing fellow who spends his money freely. To bang up prime: to bring your horses up in a dashing or fine style: as the swell's rattler and prads are bang up prime; the gentleman sports an ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... appeared in the Pennsylvania Journal an article setting forth the propriety of choosing the rattlesnake to represent America. The style of the article and its keenness are like Franklin, but there is no proof that he was its author. Whoever did write it notes that the "rattler" is peculiar to America; that the brightness of its eyes and their lack of lids fit it to be an emblem of vigilance. It never begins an attack and never surrenders, never wounds till it has given warning. The writer had counted the rattles on the naval ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... chilly all night," said Bunch, and added, looking askance at his erstwhile bed-fellow, "They ain't no more heat in Oleson than a rattler." ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... time," grinned a dark-haired, blue-eyed youngster called Broncho. "Gabby's about as sociable as a rattler. I wouldn't change places ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... searching the gulley's edge. Then they saw dimly, twenty feet below, a huddled object half-hidden in the brush. They climbed down none too warily, though they knew well what might be lying, venomous as a coiled rattler, in wait for them below. Slipping and sliding in the fog-dampened grass, they reached the spot, to find the big sorrel crumpled there, dead. They searched anxiously and futilely for more, but Blink was not there, nor was there anything to show that he ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... days after the first crisis has been passed. Yet, even with this two-fold menace lurking in its fangs, it is not the most feared of Florida snakes. Preeminent in that capacity stands the diamond-back rattler, largest of the world's venomous species and second to none in point of deadliness. Smilax insisted—on I do not know what authority—that more dangerous than either of these is the beautiful little coral snake, elaps fulvius, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... twice but impossible to track them in this stony soil Bud followed trail, found them 2 mi. east of here in flat sound asleep about 3 P.M. At 6 went to flat 1/4 mi. N. of camp to tie Pete, leading Monte by bell strap almost stepped on rattler 3 ft. long. 10 rattles & a button. Killed him. To date, 1 Prairie rattler, 3 Diamond back & 8 sidewinders, 12 in all. Bud ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... of the entire Union show few deaths in a year, and yet there's no scarcity of rattlers, copperheads, and moccasins in this Republic of ours. I know a man, an ornithologist, who for twelve years has wandered about the Florida woods and never saw a rattler. And yet, the other night a Northern man, a cottager, lighted his cigar after dinner and stepped off his veranda on ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... of the success of the Archimedes, the Admiralty ordered the Rattler to be fitted with a screw, and it was no small satisfaction to find that her double-cylinder engines could be easily adapted to the new propeller. She is of 888 tons, and two hundred horse-power, and was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... where the person is struck. I never knew a case of a person recovering when hit by a genuine Florida rattlesnake. Puff adders and moccasins are deadly enough, but they are mild beside the rattler. The rattler's fangs are so long that they strike deep and the quantity of venom injected is enormous, some of it is almost instantly taken up by the veins punctured. I do not believe that anything ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... didn't I ask him to take me and the snake on home in the cart with him?" exclaimed Mary, as she lifted the rattler into the surrey by means of the lasso, and took the reins from the new boarder's uneasy hands. "Even if you can't drive, Bogus could take you to the ranch all right by himself. Lots of times when Hazel Lee and I are out driving, we wrap the reins around the whipholder and let him pick his own ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... most diabolical imaginable. Among the reptiles of Patagonia, Sir Henry, there is one, a species of black adder, known in the country as the Mynga Worm whose bite is more deadly than that of the rattler or the copperhead, and as rapid in its action as prussic acid itself. It has, too, a great velocity of movement and a peculiar power of springing and hurling itself upon its prey. The Patagonians are a barbarous people in the main and, like all barbarous people, are vengeful, cunning, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... still wit 'im—he croaked some guy. He's a lifer. On de way to de pen he pushes dis dick off'n de rattler an' makes his get-away. Dat peter-boy we meets at Quincy slips me an earful about him. Here's w'ere we draws down de five ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the enormous rattler, that still kept up a buzzing with his rattle, and which sound poor Will had believed was made by ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... panting flanks and lolling tongue, throws himself on his side exhausted. His mouth is now carefully examined, and two fingers being inserted, scoop round the fauces. The test is successful; there are traces of blood and fluff. "Bravo! Rattler! Show him—good dog. Show him!" Rattler rises with an effort, and lazily strikes into the bush, to the right. We follow in Indian file, and at about half a mile distant we come upon the kangaroo lying dead, with the second dog, old "Ugly," ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... rattlesnakes taught me that my first encounter was fortunate 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 does ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... wanted to drop the casual information, which he should assume to have heard on the train, that Samson South was returning, and to mark, on the assassin leader, the effect of the news. In his new code it was necessary to give at least the rattler's warning before he struck, and he meant to strike. If he were recognized, well—he ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... into the print shop one day, white as a sheet. "A snake," he gasped, "a big rattler across the trail ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... name listed either as stockholder, bondholder or director, but you might find the First National Bank of El Toro, represented by the cashier or the first vice-president of that institution. Also, if I were you, I'd just naturally hop the rattler for San Francisco, hie myself to some stockbroker's office to buy this stock, and while buying it look over the daily reports of the stock market for the past few years and see if the figures suggested anything ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... Family shifted uneasily before the impending tragedy, and their faces paled a little; for nearly every man of the range dreads ptomaine poisoning more than the bite of a rattler. One can kill a rattler, and one is always warned of its presence; but one never can tell what dire suffering may lurk beneath the gay labels of canned goods. But since one must eat, and since canned ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... "He ain't got a chance. There 's snow everywhere—and we can trail him like a hound dawg trailing a rabbit. And I think I know where he 's bound for. Whatever that was you said about Crazy Laura hit awful close to home. It ain't going to be hard to find that rattler!" ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... jar its rattles, but with less passion. The boy had often been told never to leave a rattlesnake alive and he looked around until he found a stick about five feet long, with which he returned to the field of his fright. The rattler had uncoiled and was creeping away when Ned rushed up and struck at him. The snake coiled like a flash and striking back, sunk his fangs in the stick within a foot of the hand of the boy. Again Ned struck, and the snake returned ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... all that is left of him, beneath that greatcoat," returned the guide, who then briefly related the manner of the Lieutenant's death. "The Tuscarora was as venemous in his blow as a rattler, though he failed to give the warning," continued Pathfinder. "I've seen many a desperate fight, and several of these sudden outbreaks of savage temper; but never before did I see a human soul quit the body more unexpectedly, ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... see," rejoined the girl. "But look in the lower jaw. Trouble is, you science sharps expected to find hollow fangs and the sacs above, like a rattler's. Do you know why a Gila monster flops on his back when he bites? It's to let the loose poison in his lower jaw drain into the ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... a good old packhorse, named Rattler, knocked up, and I reluctantly gave orders to leave him behind, when Whiting, the old guardsman, volunteered to remain with him, and bring him on after he had rested: this in the face of both hunger and danger I duly appreciated, and ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... that he was some cowman himself, these days. He thought he had made a pretty good showing in the last twelve months; for when he first met her, at the Cedar Creek ford, he hadn't owned a hoof except the four which belonged to Rattler, his horse. He thought that maybe, if the play came right and he didn't lose his nerve, he might tell William Louisa something else! It seemed to him that he had earned ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... finished, the President sighed deeply. "Well," he said, "we gave you full plenipotentiary powers, so I suppose we'll have to stand behind your agreements—especially in view of the fact that we'll undoubtedly be blown into atoms if we don't. But from what you say, I'd rather be in bed with a rattler than have a treaty with a Vegan. They sound ungodly murderous to me. There are too many holes in that protection plan of yours. It's only a question of time before they'll find some way around it, ...
— Upstarts • L. J. Stecher
... it was Donald's turn to make this trip; on other days Sandy or Bernardo went. As there was always the chance of meeting a grizzly or a rattler the journey ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... the tale who saves himself from cobra or rattler by letting the serpent crawl its slow way over his perfectly controlled body might have withheld even a quiver of the flesh, but I am no Spartan. At my convulsive shudder each horrid claw gripped a death-hold. In one swift motion I seized a corkscrew that lay nearby, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... "Scabbard-rattler!" he mumbled derisively, as an officer approached. "Clicks his spurs to get attention! Wants you to look at him. Don't you do it. I never do." He closed his eyes tightly, ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... keep your eye out for a second one," advised Frank, uneasily; "because they generally hunt in couples. That isn't a measly little prairie rattler either; but a fellow that's come down from ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... ought to have missed that cottontail. What you want is to fire accurately, just as soon as yore gun jumps to the shoulder. I can teach you a wrinkle or two with a six-gun. Then every time you see a rattler, take a crack at it. Keep in form. You might need to bend a gun ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... fully described in the next chapter, contained a scene in which a young Indian woman, stepping upon a rattlesnake, was bitten, and died. One scene showed her walking along, with the papoose on her back, all unsuspecting of the danger that threatened. Then came a close-up showing the rattler coiled with head raised. The next full-sized scene showed the woman just about to step upon the snake concealed in the grass. In the second close-up which followed, showing only the snake and the woman's moccasined ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... some of the cries uttered by the young hunters and Sid Todd as all beheld a large-sized snake crawling from a hole under the tree. That it was a rattler there was no doubt. ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... to the passing cowboy, the plowman's pioneer; His home, the boundless mesa, he of any man the peer; Around his wide sombrero was stretched the rattler's hide, His bridle sporting conchos, his lasso at his side. All day he roamed the prairies, at night he, with the stars, Kept vigil o'er thousands held by neither posts nor bars; With never a diversion in all the lonesome land, But cattle, cattle, cattle, and ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... army was moving round to the rear of the fort the admiral sent up the ironclads to try the range, and afterward the light-draught Rattler to clear out the rifle-pits, which was done at 5.30 P.M. Hearing from General McClernand that the troops were ready, the Louisville, Lieutenant-Commander Owen; De Kalb, Lieutenant-Commander Walker, and Cincinnati, ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... (Whispers hoarsely) The squeak is out. A split is gone for the flatties. Nip the first rattler. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... knowledge and the explanations of methods of pursuing investigations. His practical instruction in snake catching is particularly interesting as it was never before introduced into this state, where the copperhead and rattler are known to have survived among the fittest. Seeing a snake hole and desiring information as to the family record of the proprietor, he inserted a finger, and while waiting for results explained that there is no better way to secure a specimen, as the enraged reptile will fasten ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... turn loose a rattlesnake that he had photographed, in the observance of his principle never to kill an animal whose picture he had taken. Subsequently it was gravely reported that one of the restive horses of the outfit had "accidentally" killed that rattler ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... replied Quilt. "But bring your glim this way. I've a couple of kinchens in yonder rattler, whom I wish to place under ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... to them," said the Rattler; "it would be in vain to attempt to contend with them. We have learned that the long knives can work in the night. A few nights ago, some young men belonging to the village of Marpuah Wechastah, had been ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... pistol which we'd forgot to return him, lyin' on the stone bench. Mankeltow puts his hand on it—he never touched the trigger—an', bein' an automatic, of course the blame thing jarred off—spiteful as a rattler! ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... moves," said The Spider in Mexican. And as he spoke his own hand flashed to his armpit, and out again like the stroke of a snake. Behind his gun gleamed a pair of black, beady eyes, as cold as the eyes of a rattler. The deputy read his own doom and the death of at least two of his men should he move a muscle. He had Young Pete covered and could have shot him down; Pete was unarmed. The ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... is of the cuckoo family of birds. It seldom flies, but runs swiftly along the roads, or in the desert, and is said to kill rattlesnakes by placing a ring of thorny cactus leaves around the snake as it lies asleep. The rattler is then pecked to death, since it cannot get out of its prickly cage. This fowl is like a slender brown hen ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... lest they come to hear it. Snake-hunters always carry with them some kind of musical instrument, depending upon the kind of snakes they wish to capture. It seems that all are not equally fascinated by it. I have experimented with little effect upon a large rattler; it may have been that he was deaf. But he gave little evidence ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... not far from the spot where we killed that rattler yesterday," said Fred, recognizing several landmarks. "I wonder whether there ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... far on our journey to-night," said the Rattler; "the long knives are ever on the ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... was eating his noon luncheon on a pine log when he saw a big rattler coiled a few feet in front of him. He eyed the serpent and began to lift his legs over the log. He had barely got them out of the way when the snake's fangs hit ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... just to the left? I dropped a big rock from the Point square on a rattler who was sunning himself there last spring. I can see a foothold all the way up the cliff. It can be done," he concluded, in a tone that made ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... a small pool. "Now, HERE," I said, "I must be careful in creeping, for the birds of the neighborhood come here to drink, and the rattlesnakes come here to catch them." I then began to cast my eye along the channel, perhaps instinctively feeling a snaky atmosphere, and finally discovered one rattler between my feet. But there was a bashful look in his eye, and a withdrawing, deprecating kink in his neck that showed plainly as words could tell that he would not strike, and only wished to be let alone. I therefore passed on, lifting ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... building, in a lean-to, there is a double-chamber rattler for the testing of paving brick according to the specifications of the ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... been for nearly eight months completely out of my mind. It seemed that the raft had drifted before the wind until—missing Saint Domingo altogether—it had reached the Windward Channel, where it was fallen in with by the "Rattler" sloop-of-war; the skipper of which picked us up, and finding that we were still alive took the greatest care of us, cracking on until he reached Port Royal. Hawsepipe and the seaman had sufficiently recovered by that time to be able to narrate all the circumstances ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... all the evening, until by midnight it blew a rattler; but, thank Heaven, we are clear of the mud; no more lead-lines bandying ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... guess," replied Frank. "That must mean the little owl that lives with the prairie dogs in their holes, along with the poison snake, otherwise the rattler." ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... after one o'clock the shadow phoned in from the Union depot that Hobart had just purchased two tickets for Patacne. We hustled over, but were too late to catch that train, but learned the girl had accompanied him on the trip. We caught another rattler two hours later, and got off at Patacne, which is about three miles west of here. It is not much of a job to gather up gossip in a small burg, and, inside of ten minutes, I had extracted all I needed from the station agent. It seems ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... said, with grudging admiration. "But this-hyar time he's done left 'is mark fer my ole eyes to see. Now, you-all jest throw yer eyes o' vision up the side o' the cliff ag'in. If ye looks cluss, ye kin see a streak o' dampness on the rock. Hit's jet as if a mounting rattler mout 'a' dove down the rock right thar. But 'twa'n't thet. Thet-thar streak is the mark of a wet rope—er mebby a grape-vine. Thet's the way them devils git up an' down. I'll bet every stick o' my mounting timber them cusses got a cave ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... to the Little Villager sat no garrulous, furry gossip like himself. That mound top was deserted. But at its foot, curled up and basking in the still blaze of the sun, close beside the doorway, lay a thick-bodied, dusty-colored rattler, the intricate markings on his back dimmed as if by too much light and heat. His venomous, triangular head, with the heavy jaw base that showed great poison pockets, lay flat on his coils, and he had the lazy, well-fed appearance ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... down there to get cool water for the plump lady who was Holman Sommers' sister, and he had nearly stepped on a sleepy rattler stretched out in the sun. Vic was making a collection of rattles. He had one set, so far, of five rattles and a "button." He wanted to get these which were buzzing stridently enough for three snakes, it seemed to Vic. He was hopping around on his good foot and ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... 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. Lord, Lord, what a humbling thing is fear! Here is one who in common delivers words too big for a humble mouth to hold, so much beside himself, that ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... these be mere externals. The true harbinger is the heart. When Strephon seeks his Chloe and Mike his Maggie, then only is Spring arrived and the newspaper report of the five foot rattler killed in Squire Pettregrew's ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... that a rattlesnake has to coil before it can spring. No one has ever written up life from a rattler's point of view, although it has been unfeelingly stated that fear of snakes is an ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... hold his place he must hold his size. He must fill the place. If he shrinks up he will rattle. Nobody can stay long where he rattles. Nature abhors a rattler. He shakes ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... footfalls of the mustangs. She was too stunned to think, to realize the horrible fate that had befallen her. She crouched down against the wall of the cave nearest the light, her ear alert for the growl of a panther or the whir of a rattler's tail. ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... in brilliant tints. Where painted fruit hangs temptingly, where great, silky blossoms exhale alluring scent, where the elaps coils inlaid with scarlet, black, and saffron, where in the shadow of a palmetto frond a succession of velvety black diamonds mark the rattler's swollen length, there death is; and his invisible consort, horror, creeps where the snake whose mouth is lined with white creeps—where the tarantula squats, hairy, motionless; where a bit of living enamel fringed with orange ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... learned to be patient with the children. I try to soften and placate her with the gift of trinkets, for there is enough Redskin in her to make her inordinately proud of anything with a bit of flash and glitter to it. But she is about as responsive to actual kindness as a diamond-back rattler would be, and some day, if she drives me too far, I'm going off at half-cock and ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... ahead now in his exposure. "Crotalin," he continued, "is one of the new drugs used in the treatment of epilepsy. But it is a powerful two-edged instrument. Some one who knew the drug, who perhaps had used it, has tried an artificial bite of a rattler on Veda Blair, not for epilepsy, but for another, diabolical purpose, thinking to cover up the crime, either as the result of the so-called death thought of the Lodge or as the bite of the real ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... the possibility of disturbing a torpid rattler. He slid feet first into the cave, found that he could all but stand upright, ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... indefatigable house again bestirred itself: Samuel and all his Sons—how many, their mother only knows—and under their immediate auspices, and partly, I think, at their expense, the British government was induced to send the sloop-of-war Rattler on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South Sea. Commanded by a naval Post-Captain, the Rattler made a rattling voyage of it, and did some service; how much does not appear. But this is not all. In 1819, the same house fitted out a ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... to his shoulder he fired, seemingly without taking aim. His bullet sped true to the mark and severed the head of the now thoroughly angered rattler. He was just in time, for already the muscles of steel had started to launch the ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... intentions " by vigorously shaking him off, I turn my "barker "loose on him, and quickly convert him into a "goody-good snake; " for if "the only good Indian is a dead one," surely the same terse remark applies with much greater force to the vicious and deadly rattler. As I progress eastward, sod-houses and dug-outs become less frequent, and at long intervals frame school-houses appear to remind me that I am passing through a civilized country. Stretches of sand alternate with ridable roads all down ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... had nothing to say. He had no associates except when we patronized him; and, in point of fact, he was a good deal of sport to us. He was always seasick whenever we had a capful of wind. He never got his sea legs on, either. And I never shall forget how we all laughed when Rattler took him the piece of pork on a string, and—But you know that time-honored joke. And then we had such a splendid lark with him. Miss Fanny Twinkler couldn't bear the sight of him, and we used to make Fagg think that she had taken a fancy to him, and send him little delicacies ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... laugh. "No, I don't. I think you are just a poor human. I was always powerfully fond of you, Lewis,—and I never could abide a rattler! There's the moon, and it's a long march to-morrow, and folks sit up late in Richmond! Unroll the blankets, and ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... slapping against me," he argued; "too darned hot! And there's nothing to use a gun on up on Sentinel.... Oh, well!" He threw the holster upon his bunk and dropped the automatic into the pack he was rolling. "I'll take it along. Might meet up with a rattler." ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... rattler run under the cabin to-day," he said, as if he were speaking of one of Old Baldy's shoes. "I tried to get a whack at him, but he oozed away ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... until he could guess the future by the past, until he could begin to read the character of the stallion. He knew, for instance, the insatiable curiosity with which the chestnut studied his wilderness and its inhabitants. He had seen the trail looping around the spot where the rattler's length had been coiled in the sand, or where a tentative hoof had opened the squirrel's hole. On a night of brilliant moonshine, he had watched through his glass while Alcatraz galloped madly, tossing head and tail, and ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... had proof, but you haven't. It's a right doubtful policy for a man to stir up a rattler till it's crazy, then to turn it loose ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... work fo' you fo' the time it takes a rabbit to dodge a rattler," said Sam. "She never did work fo' you. It was Molly's money paid her. Kate's goin' to stay right here as long as ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... told himself. "For a scared or angry rattler would have this room vibrating with his whirr. We're too far south for copperheads. The—the only other pit-viper I ever heard of in Florida is ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... des tells you," he declared, "dey ain' no spooks fer us! Dere's spooks on'y fer dem w'at kills folks on de sly-like. If ole Perkins come rarin' en tarin' wid his gun en dawg, I des kill 'im ez I wud a rattler en he kyant bodder me no mo'; but ef I steal on 'im now en kill 'im in he sleep he ghos pester me ter daith. Dat de conslomeration ob de hull business. I doan ax you ter do any ting but he'p me skeer' im mos' ter daith. He watchin' ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... Rattler from de bo'n. Here Rattler! Here! He'll drive de cows out'n de co'n, Here ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... mid-summer months blue racers and rattlesnakes swarmed and the terror of them often chilled our childish hearts. Once Harriet and I, with little Frank in his cart, came suddenly upon a monster diamond-back rattler sleeping by the roadside. In our mad efforts to escape, the cart was overturned and the baby scattered in the dust almost within reach of the snake. As soon as she realized what had happened, Harriet ran back bravely, caught up the child ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... players in the room are blindfolded, except one, who is given a tin can in which is placed a loose pebble. He is known as the "rattler." The blindfolded players attempt to locate and tag the rattler by the rattle. The one successful takes the place of ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... Kirby veered away from a fourteen-foot rattler which flashed in a loathsome coil on his left hand. Hungry, weakened by all he had been through since breakfast time, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... also grew serious. "All the same, Hans, keep an eye out," he urged. "Abe is sure to make you trouble. He's started in drinking, and when he's drunk he's poisonous as a rattler." ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... accused him of failing to consult his anecdotal notebook for the double-cross to his last sprightly sally. "Your sallies are excellent, Horace, but spare us your Aunt Sallies!" De Craye had no repartee, nor did Dr. Middleton challenge a pun. We have only to sharpen our wits to trip your seductive rattler whenever we may choose to think proper; and evidently, if we condescended to it, we could do better than he. The critic who has hatched a witticism is impelled to this opinion. Judging by the smiles of the ladies, they thought ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that shaking the rattles had a strange effect on certain animals. A canary bird sings and a rattler rattles. Perhaps they both think they are improving the ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... no!" the swamp boy quickly replied. "Sometimes leave sore, not soon heal up. But weuns have medicine tuh take when cotton-mouth or moccasin hit in leg with fangs. We splash when we go through water in swamp, and skeer away. No bother much 'bout moccasin. But rattler more trouble. Two year I get bit, and McGee have much hard time keepin' ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... farthing for damages, he would give him another for costs,[10] and that would make a halfpenny; on which the defendant's attorney tendered me—a halfpenny on the spot. Laughter in court—move for new trial first day of next term, and tip his lordship a rattler in the next ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... white neckcloth, long blue coat, with all the et-ceteras, and used hair-powder. He was, withal, very clever, and had an immensity of mother-wit. He rode the best horse in the country, kept greyhounds, and galloped a horse he called the "Rattler." The rides he took with this animal are the talk of the country to this day. The Rattler was very fast, and would jump over anything. There was no end to the hares Milner killed. He was tenant not ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... hands worked convulsively, eager to grasp and crush his wiry opponent; the Ramblin' Kid, with lips curled back from white teeth, like a pure-bred terrier circling a mastiff, bent forward, every muscle tense as drawn copper, his eyes cold as a rattler's as he searched for a ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... I smiled, as the rattler meant I should. But the words have stayed by me, the more persistently that observation bears me out in the suspicion that the merry speaker only uttered the ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... all was not well. He had felt that bell of instinct ring in him once at Juarez when he had taken a place at a table to play poker with a bad-man who had a grudge at him. Again it had sounded when he was about to sit down on a rock close to a crevice where a rattler lay coiled. ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... that Barkley lived, for the resort to weapons was the only remedy known in that land, and Dan Anderson knew the creed, as Barkley should have known it. His weapon leaped out in his hand as he drew back, his lean body bent in the curve of the fanged rattler about to strike. He did strike, but not with the point of flame. The heavy revolver came to a level, but the hooked finger did not press the trigger. Instead, the cylinder smote Porter Barkley full upon the temple, and he fell like a log. ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... Tinker caught the bullet-headed boy a ringing box on the right ear and another on the left. The boy squealed, turned, clawing and kicking, on Tinker, and, in ten seconds of crowded life, had learned the true significance of those cryptic terms an upper-cut on the potato-trap, a hook on the jaw, a rattler on the conk, and a buster on the mark. He lay down on the path to digest the lesson, and his little ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... men who hated Lincoln. The name came from copperhead-snakes, which are worse than rattlers, for rattlers rattle and give warning. A rattler is an open enemy, but you never know that a copperhead is around until he strikes. He lies low in the swale and watches his chance. "He is the worstest snake ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... that moment the rattler apparently decided it had waited long enough. The evil head ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... a single man," he said conclusively. "I 'lows no white folk 'ud get through anyways. An' we ain't got an Injun, an' if we had I wouldn't trust him no more'n I'd trust a 'rattler.' No, Rosie, gal, we've got to fight this out on our own. An' make no sort o' mistake we're goin' to fight good an' hard. I've figgered to hold this place fer two weeks an' more. That's how ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... spoke a soldier. "Any snake'd be discouraged at them shanks. A seven-year rattler'd break his ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... the unmistakable war cry of the rattler. Into Kelly's eyes came a look of fear, and he sidled gingerly. The buzz had sounded unpleasantly close to his heels. For one brief instant the cold eye of his rifle regarded harmlessly the hillside. During that instant a goodly ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... filling the syringe she pushed its needle-like point under the outlaw's skin and just above the wound. Then she injected the antidote which she had mixed—permanganate of potassium—and old plainsmen will tell you there is no better opponent of a rattler's poison than the one Peggy used, the method of utilizing which had been opportunely taught her by ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... was mighty good, Mr. Kennedy. We practically wrote a scenario for those reptiles. Doctor Nagoya was down himself and for the better part of a day it wasn't possible to get a woman in the studio, for fear a rattler or something might ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... wore, in general, a black straw, perched as a matter of convenience on the top of her head), and send it spinning across the yard. I have indeed. And once, when he did this in a manner that amounted to personal, I should have given him a rattler for himself, if Mrs Boffin hadn't thrown herself betwixt us, and received flush on the temple. Which dropped her, Mr ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Buttons eagerly offered, but no takers. Beppo jumped to his feet like a wild cat. Eyes encircled with ebon aurioles, olfactory quite demolished. Made a rush at Buttons, who, being a member of the Dodge Club, dodged him, and landed a rattler on the jugular, which again sent foreign party ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... surmise, he was seen no more in that locality. Judge, then, of our dismay, locally, at learning, not a fortnight later, from a fellow employee of Mayme's, that she had been met at closing time by a swell young guy in a cherry-colored rattler, who took her away to dine with him. Catechized upon the point, later on, by a self-appointed committee of two consisting of the Little Red Doctor and myself, Mayme said vaguely that it was all right; we didn't understand. This is, I believe, the usual formula. ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... starving coyotes howl the night through, where the great, gaunt gray wolves loom up in the night seeking what they may kill and eat, or where a step in the dark may be your last should you tread on a desert rattler. I'd rather be there and face all of that, and the peril of dying from thirst, than be anywhere else in the world," he concluded, and ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... civilization to civilize. This is seen chiefly in the vicinity of the Grand Canon of the Colorado. Venomous rattlesnakes are used in the dance, which is an annual affair. Hundreds of snakes are caught for the occasion, and when the great day arrives the devotees rush into the corral and each seizes a rattler for his purpose. Reliable authorities, who have witnessed this dance, vouch for the fact that the snakes are not in any way robbed of their power to implant their poisonous fangs into the flesh of the dancers. It even appears ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... tangles, Till I saw a splash of blood on a stump, And the quail lying close to the rotten roots. I reached my hand, but saw no brier, But something pricked and stunned and numbed it. And then, in a second, I spied the rattler— The shutters wide in his yellow eyes, The head of him arched, sunk back in the rings of him, A circle of filth, the color of ashes, Or oak leaves bleached under layers of leaves, I stood like a stone as he shrank and uncoiled And started ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... could see them as plain as if they was painted on the moon with ink. It was another caravan. We cooled down our speed and tagged along after it, just to have company, though it warn't going our way. It was a rattler, that caravan, and a most bully sight to look at next morning when the sun come a-streaming across the desert and flung the long shadders of the camels on the gold sand like a thousand grand-daddy-long-legses ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... whether you have bits of revelations from old poets to send, or not. If I had the Mostellaria here, I would read it; or a Rabelais, I would do as Morgan Rattler ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... joshing you there before supper," he went on, speaking low that he might not be overheard—and ridiculed—from the house, "I didn't know the whole outfit was making a practice of doing the same thing. I hadn't heard about the dead tarantula on your pillow, or the rattler coiled up on the porch, or any of those innocent little jokes. But if the rest are making it their business to devil the life out of you, why—common humanity forces me to apologize and tell you I'm out of it ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... secluded spot, and dismounting, we thought we were going to have a nice little drink all by ourselves, when who should ride up but Mr. Lathrop, the Reporter of the Associated Press of the Pacific slope—to whom we had given the name of the "Death Rattler,"—and who was also known in San Francisco as "the man with the iron jaw," he having, with the true nose of a Reporter, smelt the whiskey from afar off, and had come to "interview" it. He was a good fellow withal, and we were glad ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... works on. It's the same as what they call homoepathy, that 'like cures like.' I've seen a man, when struck by a rattler, chase the reptile, kill him, and apply his crushed body to the wound, in the belief that one poison would counteract ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... 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 seen on our farm, though we heard of them being common on limestone hills eight ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... great rattler and all the little rattlers, he did it!" shouted Yellin' Kid, as he pulled his horse to a stop, an example followed by the others. For though they might all (save one, perhaps) have pulled out of the encircling rope, there possibly would have been an accident. One, or more, of the ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... almost every year. This year (1932) the eleven year old brother of a Hopi girl in the writer's employ went into his first snake dance, as a gatherer, and his sister (a school girl since six) was as solicitous as the writer whenever it was a rattler that Henry had to gather up. But we both felt that we must keep perfectly still, so our expressions of anxiety were confined to very low whispers. Henry was not bitten and if he had been he would not have died. It is claimed ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... gun-barrel road back to Colorado. We camped one evening in Rattlesnake gulch; about midnight I heard a buzz I arose rather suddenly layed back the cover and saw within six inches of my son's face a large old diamond back rattler. It was close and short work to dispatch him but I succeeded, the report of my gun brought all hands to their feet they examined the headless reptile, and were soon again lost in slumber. after while we arrived safely ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... latest constructed and largest crabs, Q and R, headed at full speed to meet the Llangaron, who, as she came on, opened the ball by sending a "rattler" in the shape of a five-hundred-pound shot into the ribs of the repeller, then at least four miles distant, and immediately after began firing her dynamite guns, which were of limited range at the roofs of the ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... it!" exclaimed Charley vehemently. "You might as well say you were immune to rattler bites, Mr. Huntingdon—" here his ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... life before Burns began to think very highly of Fox: he had hitherto spoken of him rather as a rattler of dice, and a frequenter of soft company, than as a statesman. As his hopes from the Tories vanished, he began to think of the Whigs: the first did nothing, and the latter held out hopes; and as hope, he said was the cordial of the human heart, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... hot wave means another rattler, I should guess," he declared when discussing the weather ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... a boy of fourteen Tobacco Jim, who owned many dogs, Rose from the door of his tent And came to where we were running, Young Coyote, Rattler, Little Fox, And said to me in their hearing: "You are the fastest of all. Now run again, and let me see. And if you can run I will make you my runner, I will care for you, And you shall have ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... laugh and laugh, and ask Marster Sam how he felt. Marster Sam kinda frown and say: 'Damn I feels like hell! Git up dat tree! Don't you see dat 'possum up dere?' I say: 'But where de snake, Marster?' He say: 'Dat rattler done gone home, where me and you and dat ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... had never thought of being bitten by a rattler. He had seen so many of them that he had come to look upon them only as targets at which he might shoot when he thought he needed practice. And now he was bitten. The unreality of the incident surprised him. He looked around at the silent hills, ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... out on a little scout himself last summer," remarked Kenton, who, despite their alarming surroundings, seemed to be in somewhat of a reminiscent mood, "when, on his way back, he started through that holler. The fust thing he did was to step into a rattler, which burried his fangs in his leggins, just missing his skin. Afore the sarpent could strike again, the captain made a sweep with his gun bar'l that knocked off his head. He was a whopper, and the captain pulled out his knife to cut off his rattles to bring ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... call rushing the mourners!" gasped Bandy-legs, after they had made sure that the rattler was as dead as might be expected before sundown; for Owen declared that he had some sort of belief in the old saying that "cut up a snake as you will, its tail ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... courts an' the settlements, boys?" said he. "Fer me, when I kill a rattler, that's enough. Ef ye're touchy an' want yer ree-cord clean, why, we kin go below an' fix hit. Only thing is, I don't want ter waste no more time'n I kin help, fer some o' them horses has a ree-cord that ain't maybe so plumb clean their own ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... sinister voice and wondered what the face behind the mask looked like. The bandit leader had no more soul than a rattler, and one might expect more mercy from a wolf. And Kid Wolf already knew whom The Terror meant when he spoke of "our man." Anger shook the Texan from head to foot. He had learned enough. The bandits were already about to mount their horses in order that they might reach the wagon ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... varicolored flowers As a greeting to the trav'ler, Solace to the toilsome hours. Old Jack Rabbit hopped before him, Then sat up, to watch him pass, Dusky horned-toads scurried nimbly Through the withered buffalo grass. Here and there the buzzing rattler Whirred a warning, head alert, Then retreated from the snapping, Stinging strokes of Billy's quirt. Day by day the wild breeze flying, With'ring in its scorching heat, Hummed a tune to labored beating Of ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... of men as snake trappers. Their usual technique is to pin the rattler to the ground by means of a forked stick thrust dexterously over his neck, after which he is conveyed into a bag made for the purpose. Probably the cleverest of her trappers is a Mexican who has a faculty of catching these dangerous ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... like a runaway horse, ye wind-broken, spavined old crow-bait, you!" she criticized Rab as he stood half asleep in the sun. "I shall have to tell a lee about you, and for that God may wither the tongue of me. I shall say that a rattler buzzed beneath your nose—though perhaps I should say it was behind ye, Rab, else they will wonder that ye didna run away home. If ye could but lift an ear and roll the eye of you, wild-like, perhaps they will believe me. But I dinna ken—I ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... such skunks as you!" he hissed, flinging Pike from him after offering him that deadly insult. "I want to warn you to keep out of my way after this. If you don't, I'll treat you just as I would a rattler!" ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... embodiment of perfect wisdom and perfect righteousness. We take him at his own valuation, humbly. Yet we have a queer instinct that there was a time when he did not diffuse all this cold radiance of good example. Something tells us that he has been a sinner in his day—a rattler of the ivories at Almack's, and an ogler of wenches in the gardens of Vauxhall, a sanguine backer of the Negro against the Suffolk Bantam, and a devil of a fellow at boxing the watch and wrenching the knockers when Bow Bells were chiming the small hours. ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... but you give me this little ban', Miss Amy, an' looked at me as if I wa'n't a beast, an' it's ben a liftin' me up ever sence. Oh, I've had good folks talk at me an' lecter, an' I ben in jail, but it all on'y made me mad. The best on 'em wouldn't 'a teched me no more than they would a rattler, sich as we killed on the mountain. But you guv me yer han', Miss Amy, an' thar's mine on it agin; I'm goin' to be ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... it," said McCarty, looking hard at Baxter. "Cheyenne, he's just the man to train up that little pet rattler of yours." ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... look out for those snakes," said the driver. "That's a rattler, and poisonous. Keep away ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... there were John and Andrew and Black Peter, and Bow-legged Saul, and Milker-Tim, and Billy, and Uncle Limpy-Jack, and others now forgotten, and the three white boys. And the dogs, "Ole Rattler," and "Ole Nim-rod," who had always been old by their names, and were regarded with reverence akin to fetich-worship because they were popularly supposed to be able to trail a hare. It was a de-lusion, I am now satisfied; for I cannot recall that they ever ...
— The Long Hillside - A Christmas Hare-Hunt In Old Virginia - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page |
