whoa! I just saw a snake!

[Spoke]

@Dinsdale

I was unclear from your OP, which described the animal “dashing.” If it was rolling like a hoop with its tail in its mouth, you may have glimpsed the rare - and dangerous - hoop snake.

Or perhaps a coachwhip snake, which as all old-timers know, will chase down and whip to death its human victims. Beware!

[Chronos]

I’ve always wondered how they get back up the hill after rolling down it. Maybe one of your terror stricken neighbors can tell us.

You’ve heard of the Round River, that Paul Bunyon tried to drive logs down, only to find that he was going in circles? That’s just one manifestation of a well-documented geological phenomenon found in several places in the US, where, due to peculiarities in the local gravitational field, combined with the centrifugal force due to the Earth’s rotation, you can get a path which is downhill the whole way around. Hoop snakes have evolved to take advantage of this rare occurance, and are found most predominantly in the vicinity of these loop hills. So they roll downhill to the bottom of the hill, and then (effectively) roll back downhill to the top of it.