But the rattlesnake trick -- that was all his own.

"How did you know it was here?" said Mrs. Burroughs, recovering herself from the sight of the snake.

"I fetched him here," Leonidas told her proudly. "Made him follow I've handled him, sure, but it was after I'd first made him strike his pizen out upon a stick. Ye know, after he strikes four times he ain't got any pizen left. Then ye kin do anythin' with him, and he knows it I've bin three months trainin' him "

Bret Harte (1836-1902) gained fame for his local-color tales of the Far West, in the days of the California Gold Rush.