He put his head under the canopy made by my shawl, not daring to laugh aloud, for fear he might be heard by the man, and said it was more fun to see that soldier fish than to hear him play on the violin. No wonder the men enjoyed the sport, for even these little bull-fish, fairly gritty from the muddy water in which they lived, were a great addition to their pork and hard-tack fare.
For once the sun overcame me, and I knew the ignominy of being compelled to own that I was dizzy and faint. I had not been long in military life before I was as much ashamed of being ill as if I had been a real soldier. The troops pride themselves on being invulnerable to bodily ailments. I was obliged to submit to being helped back to camp, and in the cool of the evening watched the return of the fishers, who were as proud of the strings of ugly little things they carried as if they had been pickerel or bass. Then the blue flame and soft smoke began to ascend from the evening fires, and the odor from the frying supper rose on the air.
In my indolent, weak condition I never knew how I was able to perform such agile pirouettes as I did; but hearing a peculiar sound, I looked down and saw a huge rattlesnake gliding towards me. I had long ago learned to suppress shrieks, but I forgot all such self-control then. How I wished myself the Indian baby we had seen the day before—the veritable "baby in the tree-top," for it was tied by buckskin thongs to a limb! There I thought I could rest in peace. The snake was soon despatched. The men had left camp so hurriedly in the morning that the usual beating of the ground was omitted, and so I had this unwelcome visitor.
