The next instant she started back with a wild cry of horror. For it was
as if the grass itself had suddenly come to malignant life under her
hands. A shape--long, thin, vividly green--rose up before her, and swayed
with an angry hiss.

Her cry seemed to galvanize Robin into action, for he sprang up fiercely
barking, but his attention was not directed towards her. He leapt instead
towards the house, yelling resentment as he went. And in a flash the
green evil struck at the bare brown arm!

Dot shrieked again, shrieked like a demented creature, and in a moment,
with hands flung wide, she was fleeing across the sun-baked yard.

She reached the open door immediately behind Robin, and sprang in
headlong. Robin had ceased to bark, and was fawning at the feet of a man
who had evidently just entered. He was bent down over the dog, fondling
him with one hand. In the other something bright gleamed, and as he
straightened himself the girl saw that it was a revolver; but she was too
agitated to take much note of the fact.

She burst in upon him in breathless, horrified distress. "I've been
bitten!" she cried to him. "Bitten by a snake!"

"Where?" he said.

He had her by the arm in a second and was pushing up the loose holland
sleeve. Later she marvelled at his promptitude, his instant intuition.
At the moment she was too terrified, too near collapse, to notice any of
these things.