““My big rattler was old, and had led too easy a life; there was not much fight in him. He had probably lived there for years, with a fat prairie-dog for breakfast whenever he felt like it, a sheltered home, even an owl-feather bed, perhaps, and he had forgot that the world doesn’t owe rattlers a living. A snake of his size, in fighting trim, would be more than any boy could handle. So in reality it was a mock adventure; the game was fixed for me by chance, as it probably was for many a dragon-slayer.””
![“Now he [Rattler] was staring at Prairie with an intensity you could light fires with. And she stared back. There was something between them, all right, something cracking with tension and danger, something almost ... alive.” quote by Sophie Littlefield](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/db2/sophie-littlefield-37661_quote_now-he-rattler-was-staring-at-prairie-wi_2706411.jpg)
