"There you can see what
you are likely to meet. Now, if this were a grove of little birches, it
would be well enough, for then the ground would be almost bare; but how
people can like these wild, pathless forests is incomprehensible to me.
If I owned this land I would chop down every tree."
At last he caught sight of a piece of birch bark, and just as he was
fitting it to his foot he heard a rustle behind him. He turned quickly.
A snake darted from the brush straight toward him!
The snake was uncommonly long and thick, but the boy soon saw that it
had a white spot on each cheek.
"Why, it's only a water-snake," he laughed; "it can't harm me."
But the next instant the snake gave him a powerful blow on the chest
that knocked him down. The boy was on his feet in a second and running
away, but the snake was after him! The ground was stony and scrubby; the
boy could not proceed very fast; and the snake was close at his heels.
Then the boy saw a big rock in front of him, and began to scale it.
"I do hope the snake can't follow me here!" he thought, but he had no
sooner reached the top of the rock than he saw that the snake was
following him.
Quite close to the boy, on a narrow ledge at the top of the rock, lay a
round stone as large as a man's head. As the snake came closer, the boy
ran behind the stone, and gave it a push.
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