"Rattlesnake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... have seen it, too!" said Mount, savagely. "There may be some virtue in the rattlesnake; some folk eat 'em! But there is none in an Indian, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... rare, the place abounded with rattlesnakes—the rattlesnake's nest, it might have been named. Wherever we brushed among the bushes, our passage woke their angry buzz. One dwelt habitually in the wood-pile, and sometimes, when we came for firewood, thrust up his small head between two logs, and hissed at the intrusion. The rattle ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Cophias, subsequently called by M. Bibron T. crepitans), from the size of the poison channel in its fangs, must be very deadly. Cuvier, in opposition to some other naturalists, makes this a sub-genus of the rattlesnake, and intermediate between it and the viper. In confirmation of this opinion, I observed a fact, which appears to me very curious and instructive, as showing how every character, even though it may be in some degree independent of structure, has a tendency to vary by slow degrees. ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... 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 ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... could be lost, and being answered in the negative, he replied, "Then I am safe." Now, it is not agreeable to be constantly on the watch-tower looking out for the foe, or to have to tread cautiously among the grass lest you should be bitten by a rattlesnake. But a man may imagine himself to be secure when he is not. Many of the shareholders and trustees involved in the late Bank catastrophy thought they were secure; but they slept upon a slumbering volcano, and many ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... you 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
... when persecution had almost destroyed them. He was in America, too, and had his life saved by a rattlesnake. The Indians were going to kill him, when they saw him sleeping with the snake by his side, and thought it was ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... bloomed and died, only to be trampled by the deer or savage; and strawberries studded the ground like rubies, where the green and sunny hillsides reposed amid the silence, like sleeping infants in the lap of the forest. The rattlesnake glided undisturbed through its prairies; and the fog which hung in clouds over its stagnant marshes spread no pestilence. The panther, the fox, the deer, the wolf, and bear, roamed fearless through the more remote parts of the domain, for there were none to dispute with ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... 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, ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... Doc. It makes me babble." His hand was on the door-knob. "Since you've nothing to say I suppose you mean to stick to your story, but you must admit, Doc, I've at least been as much of a gentleman as a rattlesnake. I'm rattling ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... 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 ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... by animals as little known to the inhabitants of our island as the uncouth wilds in which they live. But let not the wanderer indulge in thoughts of this description beyond the bounds of a pleasant imaginativeness. Let him take it for granted, that neither cayman nor rattlesnake will disturb his rest; and having pitched on a dry spot, let him pluck a large quantity of heather, making up a portion of it in bundles, and setting them on end closely packed together with the flower uppermost, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... delay— Young Doctor Green and shrewd old Doctor Gray— They heard the story—"Bleed!" says Doctor Green, "That's downright murder! cut his throat, you mean Leeches! the reptiles! Why, for pity's sake, Not try an adder or a rattlesnake? Blisters! Why bless you, they 're against the law— It's rank assault and battery if they draw Tartrate of Antimony! shade of Luke, Stomachs turn pale at thought of such rebuke! The portal system! What's the man about? Unload your ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... doubtless noted," began the larger creature, "I am an A-B-Sea Serpent. I am employed in the nursery of the Mer children to teach them their letters. My friend, here, is a Rattlesnake, and it is his business to amuse the Mer babies while the Mermaids are mer-marketing. Once a year, we take a vacation, and proceeding from the sea depths up a strange river, we came out upon ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... and cool, Jean felt the uplift of his dark spirit, the acceptance of fatality, the mounting control of faculties that must wait. The little gunman seemed to have about his inert presence something that suggested a rattlesnake's inherent knowledge of its destructiveness. Jean sat down and wiped ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... bodies, and once a year make a great mourning for them, and the coyote prevailed. So, presently when a 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 have it so, and now your son shall be burned like the others.' ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... was a large snake coiled up in folds, with its head darting out in a menacing attitude, and the tail, with its rattle appeared below. The whole was gilded, and had a very good effect; but after the dock-yard men had completed the repairs, and the brig was painted, one night the head of the rattlesnake disappeared. It had been sawed off by some malicious and evil disposed persons, and no traces of it were to be found. I was obliged to report this to the captain, who was very indignant, and offered twenty pounds for the discovery of ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... umbrella. Secondly, from brutes. Some travelers would have us infer that it is impossible to stir in South America without being "affectionately entwined by a serpent, or sprung upon by a jaguar, or bitten by a rattlesnake; jiggers in every sand-heap and scorpions under every stone" (Edinburgh Review, xliii, 310). Padre Vernazza speaks of meeting a serpent two yards in diameter! But you will be disappointed at the paucity of animal life. We were two months on the Andes (August and September) before we ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... was up and ready before his last word was out. We followed him for ten minutes up a dry wash filled with bowlders and dry brush. I stepped high and wide, fully expecting to be struck by a rattlesnake any minute. I knew if I said anything the Chief would laugh at me, so I stayed behind him and looked after my own safety. We reached a little mesa at the head of the coulee and found Indians of all shapes and sizes assembled there. Two or three huge ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... had some rain this morning, attended by high wind; but generally speaking, have remarked that thunder storms are less frequent than in the Atlantic states, at this season. Snakes too are less frequent, though we killed one to-day of the shape and size of the rattlesnake, but of a lighter colour. We fixed our camp on the north side. In the evening, captain Clarke, in pursuing some game, in an eastern direction, found himself at the distance of three hundred and seventy yards from the camp, at a point of the river whence we had come twelve miles. When the water is ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... a chance of escape. Incessant activity is a law in obtaining food. If the prey could be caught with ease, and no warning were given, the balance would be turned against the feebler animals, and carnivora alone would prevail. The cat shows her shortened tail, and the rattlesnake shakes his tail, to give warning to the prey. The flying-fish has large eyes in proportion to other fish, yet leaps on board very often at night, and kills himself by ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... kept for half a century; by which time the colonists were able to take care of themselves. Its good effects were illustrated in the case of the chief Canonicus, who was disposed to pick a quarrel with the Englishmen, and sent them, as a symbol of his attitude, a rattlesnake's skin wrapped round a sheaf of arrows. Bradford, to indicate that he also understood the language of emblems, sent the skin back stuffed with powder and bullets. Canonicus seems to have fancied that these substances were capable of ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... sent Gunner and Axel to hunt for agates. "If you see a rattlesnake, run. Don't try to ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... marvellous in itself, than the resolution with which Mr. Fergusson has worked through it, and in spite of it, up to some very interesting and suggestive truths; although starting with a division of humanity which does not in the least raise it above the brute, for a rattlesnake has his muscular, aesthetic, and talking part as much as man, only he talks with his tail, and says, "I am angry with you, and should like to bite you," more laconically and effectively than any phonetic biped could, were he so minded. And, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... "I only hope it's Rattlesnake Mountain we're headed for!" exclaimed Tom Betts, who had a warm feeling in his boyish heart for that particular section of country, where once upon a time the troop had pitched camp, and had met with some amusing and thrilling ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... takka (sandals woven of coco-nut fibre), stepped lightly and swiftly on before me; I with my heavy boots crushing into the brittle, delicate, and sponge-like coral, startling from their sunbaths hundreds of black and orange-banded sea-snakes—reptiles whose bite is as deadly as that of a rattlesnake, but which hastened out of our way almost as soon as they heard our footsteps. Here and there we had to turn aside to avoid deep pools, some of which, though not more than ten fathoms in width, were as blue as the ocean beyond, ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... of Innocence; the claw of an eagle, with a hole made in it, through which 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 ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt
... Cripple Creek became too effete for him, and an electric light in a tent became a target he could not resist; wherefore he went into the sage brush and the short grass, seeking others of his kind, the human rattlesnake, the ranging coyote and the outlawed wolf. Joe Nevison rode with the Dalton gang, raided ranches and robbed banks with the McWhorters and held up stages as a lone highwayman. At least, so men said in the West, though no one could ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... employment of these killing substances, but he did not use them. In his tribe they made a poison by teasing a rattlesnake and having it strike a piece of deer's liver. This was later buried in the ground until it rotted, and the arrow points were smeared with this revolting material. It was a combination of crotalin venom and ptomaine poisons, a very ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... my trusty friend, And fill it sparkling to the brim— A flowing bumper, bright and strong— And push the bottle back again; For what is man without his drink? An oyster prison'd in his shell; A rushlight in the vaults of death; A rattlesnake without his tail. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... partly in the cabin and partly in the open air, with a lapse between the putting on of his trousers and coat which he employed in bringing in wood. Raking together the few embers on the adobe hearth, not without a prudent regard to the rattlesnake which had once been detected in haunting the warm ashes, he began to prepare breakfast. By this time the other sleepers, his partners Stacy and Demorest, young men of about his own age, were awake, alert, and lazily critical ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... roughly resembling a half moon. Toward the east, perhaps twenty-five miles from where Conniston sat upon his horse, the distant mountains sent out two far-reaching spurs of pine-clad ridges between which lay Rattlesnake Valley. Due south, as Lonesome Pete's outstretched finger indicated, lay the road which they were to follow and the headquarters of the Half Moon. There again a thickly timbered spur of the mountains ran down into the plain on each side of a deeply cleft canon from which Lonesome Pete told them ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... (estimate) taksi. Rather plivole. Ratify aprobi. Ratio proporcio. Ration porcio. Rational racionala. Rationalism racionalismo. Rationalist racionalisto. Rattle (a toy) kraketilo. Rattlesnake sonserpento. Raucous rauxka. Ravage (lay waste) ruinigi. Rave deliri, paroli sensence. Ravel maltordi. Raven korvo. Ravenous englutema. Ravine intermontajxo. Ravishing (delightful) rava. Raw (chilly) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... five feet, and shines in the dark; so that fortunately a warning is given of the vicinity of these animals in different ways; in some by the odour they exhale, in some by the light they emit, and in others, like the rattlesnake, by the sound they ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... sage-fowl's inherent weaknesses were paraded before her; the hoot of the owl was imitated with ludicrous solemnity; other fowl were described with wonderful attention to detail; and the inevitable rattlesnake was pointed out to her as a serpent whose chief occupation in life was that of posing in the shadow of the sage-brush as a target for the revolver of ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Nika, who had followed him from Canada to France, and from France to Texas, was bitten by a rattlesnake; and, though he recovered, the accident detained the party for several days. At length they resumed their journey, but were arrested by a large river, apparently the Brazos. La Salle and Cavelier, with a few others, tried to cross on a raft, which, as it reached the channel, was caught ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... of a hunter sighting over his gun, were the gleaming eyes and face of the young Shawanoe. It looked as if he had turned his head to one side that he might catch the music made by the twang of the string when it should dart forward with the speed of the rattlesnake striking ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... thing till the people combined in great squirrel hunts and destroyed them by tens of thousands. The larger game had meanwhile disappeared. The buffalo and the elk went first; the deer followed, and the bear, and even the useless wolf. But long after these the poisonous reptiles lingered, the rattlesnake, the moccasin, and the yet deadlier copperhead; and it was only when the whole country was cleared that they ceased to be ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... extension phone went off like an annoyed rattlesnake. Walters scooped it up, spoke into it, listened for a moment, and ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... paraded in one of the Charleston newspapers, the names of the most pronounced disunionists were the most frequent and conspicuous. "Southern rights at all hazards," was the substance of many mottoes, and the palmetto and the rattlesnake were favorite emblems. There was neither mistaking nor avoiding the strong undercurrent of treason and rebellion here manifested, and the Governor's proclamation had doubtless ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... what this rattlesnake would be at now?" Stephens asked himself, and then turning to ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... positions of command. When the news of the battle of Lexington reached him, he offered his services to Congress. He was made First Lieutenant of the Alfred, and over this ship hoisted the first emblem shown on an American naval vessel. The design of this flag was a pine tree with a rattlesnake coiled at the roots and the motto, "Don't tread on me," on a background of ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... she is in any present danger. The poisoned knife is her safeguard. The whole household, after witnessing its terrible potency, fear it as they would the fangs of a rattlesnake. It was a lucky thought that left it ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... up. All day and most of the night before he had been in the saddle. Cuffs had found him across the divide, nearly forty miles away, working over a boy who had been bitten by a rattlesnake. But he brought into the sick room with him that manner of cheerful confidence which radiates hope. You could never have guessed that he was very tired, nor, after the first few minutes, did he know it himself. He ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... farm, Huckelby, the overseer, kept his eye on Clotelle if within sight of her, for he knew she was a slave, and no doubt hoped that she might some day fall into his hands. But she shrank from his looks as she would have done from the charm of the rattlesnake. The negro-driver always tried to insinuate himself into the good opinion of Georgiana and the company that she brought. Knowing that Miss Wilson at heart hated slavery, he was ever trying to show that the slaves ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... gun," said Steve with emphasis. "As rich as John D. pretty nearly and about as chummy as a rattlesnake. Were you thinking of calling and asking him ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... as if starved for pure air and spoke. "Not to-day Betsy! I can't face my friends just now. Someway I am making an awful fist of things. Everything I do is wrong. She no more trusts me than you would a rattlesnake, Belshazzar; and from all appearance she takes me to be almost as deadly. What must have been her experiences in life to ingrain fear and distrust in her soul at that rate? I always knew I was not handsome, but I never before regarded my appearance ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... and seek safety right at the bottom of the river. The jaguars were timid in the extreme; and though they would have fought perhaps if driven to bay, their one idea seemed to be to seek safety in flight. It was the same with the poisonous serpents, the most dangerous being a kind of miniature rattlesnake which was too sluggish and indifferent to get out of the traveller's way, and many a poor fellow suffered ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... attention drawn to that family of serpents of which the Boa is the great representative. These are all grouped together in cases (12-15). This family has what naturalists call "the rudiments of legs." They are a nobler family than that which the rattlesnake represents, inasmuch as they do not depend upon poison to master their enemy; but fight legitimately, with their muscular strength. The terrible pictures which adorn the pages of eastern travels for children, of poor Indians with ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... him as I would a rattlesnake. Because I wish to ruin him so that he will be left in my debt. So that I can hound him from this place by holding that debt over his head. It is worth two thousand to me to possess that power. Now, ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... to make me 'respect' you, Dexter, you've acted the wrong way all through to-day. You're entitled to no more respect than an Indian would show a rattlesnake." ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... throw on my understanding make me almost doubt myself," retorted Lambert, with a laughing glance at Elsie. "You must know, then, that there is a constellation named the Great Bear. It bears about as much resemblance to a bear as it does to a rattlesnake, but that's what astronomers have called it. Part of it is much more in the shape of a plough, and one of the stars in that plough is the pole-star. You can easily distinguish it when once you know how, because two of the other stars are nearly in line with it, and so ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... was under discussion: he found a means to have a throw at the Administration, and of consequence, at Clay; and bargain and corruption slid from his tongue with the concentration of venom of the rattlesnake. The very thought of Clay seemed to inspire his genius for vituperation; his eye would gleam, his meagre and attenuated form would writhe and contort as if under the enchantment of a demon; his long, bony fingers would be extended, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... the 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
... Gregorio," he cried passionately. "I love every rock and cactus and rattlesnake in it. Valgame Dios!" And the maimed right hand twisted and clutched as, subconsciously, he strove to clench his fist. "Ah, who was the coward—who was the traitor that betrayed us ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... 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
... herself to be lifted up and placed on the sofa, and sat down like a child. Even at the instant came a flash of recollection bringing back the time, long past, when Winthrop had lifted her out of the rattlesnake's way. She felt ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... the ground, along which they ran, often assuming the appearance of huge serpents; indeed, more than once, as I paced up and down, I could not help fancying that an anaconda, or boa-constrictor, or rattlesnake was creeping towards us. In the centre of the small open space was the fire, with my companions sleeping round it; near them the pile of baggage and the overturned boat; while the dark stream flowed by with a murmuring sound. Beyond, though we were sheltered ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... he had no particular fear of snakes, he had an inborn dislike of the creatures. He had read that the sidewinder, or "horned" rattlesnake, was common in ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... the agitation must be drooping, and virtually we may repeat that the game is up. But the last moves have been unusually interesting. Not unlike the fascination exercised over birds by the eye of the rattlesnake, has been the impression upon Mr O'Connell from the fixed attention turned upon him by Government. What they did was silent and unostentatious; more, however, than perhaps the public is aware of in the way of preparation for an outbreak. But the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... don't mean to say anythin'—not from now on. But while we're on the subject and to avoid any future misunderstandin' I might just as well tell you right now that I can't see nothin' good in a sheepman—nothin'! I'm like my cat Tom when he sees a rattlesnake, my hair bushes up clean over my ears and I see hell, damnation, and ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... or ten years ago; he was as bad as he could be, couldn't be any worse to be alive. He was about fifty years of age, when I left him, a right red-looking man, big bellied old fellow, weighs about two hundred and forty pounds. He drinks hard, he is just like a rattlesnake, just as cross and crabbed when he speaks, seems like he could go through you. He flogged Richmond for not ploughing the corn good, that was what he pretended to whip him for. Richmond ran away, was away four months, as nigh as I can guess, then ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... he said to himself, with a sudden shiver of delight, "I honestly believe it would fill in that hole, so that not even a rattlesnake could crawl out. Oh! if those men are in there, as I hope, and I could start that cap-stone rolling, wouldn't they be shut up as snug as if they were in a bottle, with ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... smiling. He knew that the old man had no 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
... himself again on the street, he began to curse mentally, looking at the swelling balconies of the rococo mansion. Rattlesnake! How she rejoiced at his marriage! When it had become a fact she would pretend indignation and scandal before her coterie; perhaps she would get sick so that all the islanders would sympathize with her, and yet, ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... not uncomely of feature, nay, had been handsome, nor was her look at first sight forbidding, especially if she did not turn upon you those small basilisk eyes of hers, full of fire and glare as the eyes of a rattlesnake. But truly those thin, cruel lips of hers never smiled spontaneously, or affected to smile upon you unless she had an object to gain by assuming a disguise as foreign to her as light to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Burke. When he was 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
... sleep. Then I climb'd some tall maize plants, and ate up the ears, And enjoy'd the repast, notwithstanding my fears; For great is my awe of the red Indian's gun, And I thought I had caught a slight glimpse of one. I saw, too, a rattlesnake creeping hard by, And heard his tail clatter, and mark'd his red eye. He coil'd himself up, for he spied me right soon, And was wishing, no doubt, for a bit of raccoon; Then, thinking the risk of a rifle in truth, Was better by far than his poisonous tooth, I hasten'd ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.
... me snow or sweat or smoke de reason. Dat ain't de reason. Dey a old, old, slowfooted somethin' from Louisiana and dey say he de conjure man, one dem old hoodoo niggers. He git mad at me de last plum-ripenin' time and he make up powdered rattlesnake dust and pass dat through my hair and I sho' ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... squaw was dead. A rattlesnake had given her its fatal sting, and the outcast, dreading all men and the coroner not the least, had, silently and alone, buried her ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... by permitting it at last to live to its liking, to obey its genius, and to serve its interests, has hitherto resulted in little, save the singing of the Marseillaise, (the Marseillaise of Slavery!) and the striking down of the Federal colors before the flag of the pelican and the rattlesnake. A great many blue ribbons and Colt's revolvers are sold; and busts of Calhoun, the first theorist of secession, axe carried about ostentatiously. Next, to present a good mien to the eyes of Europe, a Constitution is voted in haste, a government is formed, an army is decreed; but the revolutionary ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... 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, And over it the besom shake, And sink it fathoms ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... is of interest to learn that the danger to life from bites and stings of poisonous reptiles and insects has been greatly exaggerated. According to popular opinion, anyone bitten by a rattlesnake, gila monster or tarantula is doomed to die, while as a matter of fact the statistics show that only from two to seven per-cent succumb to the effects of the wounds inflicted by ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... echoed joyously. "But I haven't heard that name for twenty years. And you're the boy whose father was a doctor, and who helped us build our Indian camp, and who had the frog, and fell off the roof, and killed the rattlesnake." ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... 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 go to the Zoological Gardens, and see him there: he crawls ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... creatures are the torment of the traveler throughout Greece, and most of all in Arcadia. If on foot, he can pick up a stone, at sight of which the enemy will beat a hasty retreat. Greece seems to have been bountifully supplied with loose stones of the right size for this very purpose, just as the rattlesnake-plant is said to grow wherever the rattlesnake itself is found. If on horseback, he can easily escape, although the animal will not scruple to hang to the horse's tail or bite his heels. Such was Arcadia in March. No doubt, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... out her arms as wide as she could—"came out of a tuft of grass. His tongue was like a scarlet thread, and had two sharp points; and, do you know, he raised his wicked head, and hissed at me; I was so frightened that I ran away. I think, Mrs. Frazer, it must have been a rattlesnake. Only feel now how my heart beats" —and the little girl took her nurse's hand, and ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... credit themselves with only the sublimest of motives. I spoke to Carlotta like the good father in the "Swiss Family Robinson." I gave vent to such noble sentiments that in a quarter of an hour I glowed with pride in my borrowed plumes of virtue. I would have taken a slug to my bosom and addressed a rattlesnake as Uncle Toby did the fly. I wonder whether it is not through some such process as this that parsons manage to keep ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... would have found the cloudy brown liquor virulently repulsive. It contained in solution, with other things, the vital element of surprise, for it was comparatively odourless, and, unlike the chivalrous rattlesnake, gave no warning of what it was about to do. In the case of Penrod, the surprise was complete and ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... on 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
... smaller rattlers are very plentiful, they always give you warning with their unique, unmistakable rattle. Once, on stooping down to tear up by the roots a dangerous poison weed, in grasping the plant my hand also grasped a rattlesnake. I dropped it quick enough to escape injury, but the cold sweat fairly broke out all over me. The bite is always painful, but ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... and I couldn't expect it to sprout up in this open place. This is a different thing from the Seneca rattlesnake-root; there's more cure in an ounce of this than in a pound of that. I'll wager five shillings to a sixpence that I can name you nine out of ten of the medicines and dyestuffs growing on ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... surface and along the banks of the river aligators are sporting; moccason snakes twist their way along, and scouring kingfishers croak in the balmy air. If a venerable rattlesnake warn us we need not fear-being an honourable snake partaking of the old southerner's affected chivalry;-he will not approach disguised;-no! he will politely give us warning. But we have emerged from the mossy walk and reached a slab fence, dilapidated and broken, which encloses an ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... underground for the rest of your life? Sirrah, I will ruin and annihilate you!"—and "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 ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... rare upon the Llano Estacado, although the prong-horn antelope—true denizen of the desert—is there found, as also its enemy, the Mexican jackal, or coyote. To the rattlesnake and horned lizard (agama) it is a congenial home; and the singular snake-bird (paisano) may frequently be seen running over the arid waste, or skulking through the tortuous stems of the nopals. In the canons of the stream the grizzly ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... statesmen, whose very atmosphere is compassion and magnanimity towards the poor and weak, are now uttering sentiments that four years ago would have been astounding beyond compare. These men feel that there is no longer any room in the world for the German. Society has organized itself against the rattlesnake and the yellow fever. Shepherds have entered into a conspiracy to exterminate the wolves. The Boards of Health are planning to wipe out typhoid, cholera and the Black Plague. Not otherwise, lovers of their fellow man have ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... 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, ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... call me "Sir"?' cried Mantalini. 'Me who dote upon her with the demdest ardour! She, who coils her fascinations round me like a pure angelic rattlesnake! It will be all up with my feelings; she will throw me into a ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... dark, save for a tan vest which buttoned close around his throat; his boots were of the very best quality, and fitted the calf of his leg snugly, and on his head was an expensive Stetson, with the skin of a rattlesnake for ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... which sounded to him like the gliding of a rattlesnake over the leaves, caused him to start and turn round. But he was too late. A crushing blow on the head from a club in the hand of a brawny Indian laid him senseless on ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... through, and of his 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 and ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... down across de fiel', A rattlesnake bit me on de heel. I rears an' pitches an' does my bes', An' I falls right ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... sometimes made prizes of rabbits and hares, which are very plentiful here, and great numbers of which we often shot for our dinners. There was another animal that I was not so much disposed to find amusement from, and that was the rattlesnake. These are very abundant here, especially during the spring of the year. The latter part of the time that I was on shore, I did not meet with so many, but for the first two months we seldom went into "the bush" without one of our number starting some of them. The first that I ever saw, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... morning there was in our track a "gaunt grey wolf" with sharp ears, unabashed by the roar of the train. His species find occasional scraps along the track and do not fear the trains. Then I saw something glisten in the herbage, and it was a rattlesnake, if it ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... the black bulb thermometer rose in the sun to 150 deg. F., although that very night the temperature fell to 22.9 deg. F., a difference of nearly 130 deg.. The warmth was such that even a rattlesnake was deceived and ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... two-gun man. He wore them rather consciously sagging from his lean hips—almost pompously, it seemed. Nor did he appear properly unconscious of his remaining attire—of the broad-brimmed hat, its band of rattlesnake skin; of the fringed buckskin shirt, opening gallantly across his pinched throat; of his corduroy trousers, fitting bedraggled; of his beautiful ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... nature gave the 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" ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... District Forester 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 ...
— 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
... urging these men to start an uprising that will take the American troops by surprise and wipe them out. From something he said I have an idea that he was concerned in the plot to blow up Ehrenbreitstein. He's as dangerous as a rattlesnake, and ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... 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 on me ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... was not in 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
... had another queer bout with some thieves. They were not after the land this time, but they planned to get at the ore and carry off as much of the gold as they could lay hands on. Our old friend, Rattlesnake Mike, caught them red-handed, and now they are serving a term in prison at ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Constitution. Arriving in the United States, he purchased an estate not far from New York and built himself a handsome mansion, but a year later retribution came from an unlooked-for quarter, for he was bitten by a rattlesnake and died in the most horrible agonies both of ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... I'd like to hear Madam Farnham hear you call her that; she'd just tear your eyes out. But Lord-a-mercy, she hain't got animation enough for anything of the sort; if she had, a rattlesnake wouldn't be more cantankerous to my thinking. She's got all the pison in her, but only hisses it out like a cat; in my hull life I never did see ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... and still she was not quick enough of eye to see my draw. Then I did it slowly, explaining to her the action of hand and then of finger. She seemed fascinated, as a woman might have been by the striking power of a rattlesnake. ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... grip, he gave the pinto its head, trusting to it to establish footing. He saw Sam's roan dancing in the trail, the led mare plunging, dust rising all about them. Left-handed, a Colt flashed out of Sandy's holster, barked twice, the echoes tossing between the canyon walls. In the road a rattlesnake writhed, headless, its body, thicker than a man's wrist, checkered in dirty gray ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... 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 part of the two walls ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... old mades met together in the village milliner shop, where the Sore-eye-siss society held meetin's once a week, and their false teeth trembled like a rattlesnake's tail, when they read ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 19, August 6, 1870 • Various
... 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 not only catch it up fearlessly, but carry it with impunity in their mouths ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard |
