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Show HELD UP BY SNAKES. AN ARMY ENGINEER'S EXCITING NIGHT IN THE NORTHWEST. A. Walking Stick That Had Nineteen Rat. ties Roosting on a Bowlder and Surrounded Sur-rounded by Wolves A Buzzing Noise That Is Far From Musical. "We reached the Wolf mountain, in the Big Horn country, one day in September," Sep-tember," said H. P. Tuttle, formerly an army engineer, ' 'while to the south were dimly visible the outlines of the Rattlesnake Rattle-snake mountains. These names were given to these mountains by both the Crow and Sioux Indians, who regarded them with horror. Late on the afternoon of our first day in these mountains I sent all of my party to camp, about two miles to the southwest.- Going forward with my transit to where I had sent my head flagman, I placed it in position and told him he could return to camp, as I had to remain in order to make an astronomical as-tronomical observation early in the evening. even-ing. "Taking off his bolt, which held a huge revolver and a sheath knife about a foot in length, he handed it to me, saying that I might need it after dark, ns he had just seen a small pack of wolves ahead. After ho had gone I look ed over the ground about me and saw that I was on a flat topped hill covered with large bowlders and small stones, but entirely destitute of vegetatiou. Seating myself beside a big bowlder, 1 took out my notebook and began writing up my notes for the day, when darknes3 suddenly reminded me that it was about time to make my astronomical observations. observa-tions. This was soon over, and I started off at a brisk walk toward our camp. "I had not gone over a hundred yarda when I saw, a few feet ahead of rue, a long, black object lying directly in my path. I wanted a walking stick badly, and was stooping down to pick it up when I noticed the end of it farthest from me was whito. Taking a match from my pocket and tearing a leaf from the back of my notebook, I soon had the desired light, and what was my hor ror to see that the supposed stick was nothing but one of the deadly green rattlesnakes, rat-tlesnakes, completely paralyzed by the chilly night air. "Another light showed that the white object was the snake's rattles. So old was he that his rattles had turned white. Holding my revolver within a foot of his head, I fired and blew it entirely off. But now came, another surprise, which for moment made mo tremble. The report re-port of my revolver had awakened dozens doz-ens of rattlers who had sought shelter under the loose rocks before sunset. The sounds came from all tUftjJono, and some seemed close to mv feet. "To ono who has been in the forest and heard the noise made "y hundreds of locusts he can readily realize my situation, situ-ation, for the buzz of a rattlesnake ia exactly like the buzz of a locust. The only thing now for me todowastostand in my tracks all night oCke my way back to the bowlder from winch I started, start-ed, but there was a difficulty, for in the excitement I had forgotten the direction. But 'where there is a will there is a way, ' aud by stooping low down and scanning the horizon I soon detected the outline of my transit against the sky, and cutting off the rattles I was soon beside be-side the bowlder and filled with excitement excite-ment enough for one night. "Sitting down by the bowlder, I made up my mind to pass the night at that spot and was soon sleeping as soundly as one can in the open air, with only a canvas coat and the mercury below freezing. freez-ing. About midnight I was suddenly aroused by something trying to pull off the shoe from my left foot. In an instant I caught the glaring eyes and outline of a wolf. He had given up his grip as he saw me move, and mechanically I seized my revolver, which I had left lying in my lap, and fired as best I could with my half frozen hand. ' 'A loud yell showed that he had been struck, and immediately a dozen or more wolves who had been close by set up a howling, which in the still night air could have been heard for miles around. For an hour or two all wa9 quiet, when a solitary howl a few yards from me was answered by a dozen others oth-ers not 100 yards away. It was too dark to see an animal of the size of a wolf more than 20 feet away; but, trusting to luck, I took the direction of the'pack as near as possible and sent three shots at them as rapidly as I could fire. "A couple of yells showed two had been hit, most probably by glancing bullets. bul-lets. Soon after this the howling of the wolves ceased, aud for awhile all was quiet again. "As soon as it was light enough 1 picked up the string of rattles which I had secured the night before and found there were 19, and as the 'button' was missing ho may have had several more. A few rods from my transit lay the cleanly picked bones of a wolf which one of my random shots had killed during the night, and on which the coyotes had made a susbtantial meal, but, not satisfied satis-fied with this, they had devoured the big rattler I had killed, head and all. "Returning to camp, I ordered one of my men to cut ten small poles, not less than eight feet in length, and to wake me up at 10 o'clock. At that hour ws all started for the place whore I had passed the night. Here we found, as I had expected, the warm rays of the sun had brought out the snakes from their hiding places to bask in the sunhsine. "We wore greeted with a defiance not unlike that of a thousand July locusts, and the work cf destruction began in real earnest. In one hour and ten minutes min-utes our bag contained 213 rattler.1), varying from one foot to over three feet in length, and of a dark green color. Only two were found whose rattles had turned gray. Wo could have destroyed hundreds more had our time not been too valuable to waste in such sport. We saw but few rattlers after leaving this point, but the wolves made night hideous until we reached the Little Missouri river, a month later, "Kansas City Journal, |
