"
"Oh, you were seeing snakes!" said Tim grimly.
"Not the kind you mean; I hadn't anything to drink--"
"No, you never did drink, I remember--just was crooked, and slopped over
women. Well, about the snakes?"
"I caught them to eat, and they were poison-snakes often. And I wasn't
quick at first to get them safe by the neck--they're quick, too."
Tim laughed inwardly. "Getting your food by the sweat of your brow--and
a snake in it, same as Adam! Well, was it in the desert you got your
taste for honey, too, same as John the Baptist--that was his name, if I
recomember?" He looked at the tin of honey on the ground.
"Not in the desert, but when I got to the grass-country."
"How long were you in the desert?"
"Close to a year."
Tim's eyes opened wider. He saw that the man was speaking the truth.
"Got to thinking in the desert, and sort of willing things to come to
pass, and mooning along, you, and the sky, and the vultures, and the hot
hills, and the snakes, and the flowers--eh?"
"There weren't any flowers till I got to the grass-country.
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