"And how could we find a rattler--_here_?
We're crossing open ground now.

There is no place within three hundred feet of us for a rattlesnake to move without our seeing him." Cl-cl-cl-click! Alf Drew held back, trembling.
"I'm not going forward another step," he insisted.

"This ground is full of rattlers." "Let's go back to camp, then, if your nerves are so unstrung," Reade proposed.
They turned, starting backward.

Again the warning rattle sounded, seemingly just in front of Alf, though there was no place for a snake to conceal itself nearby.
Alf, however, turned paler still, halted and started off at right angles to his former course.

Again the rattle sounded.
"Hear that snake ?" demanded young Drew.
"No; and there isn't one," Tom assured him.