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Show POISON FOE ARROWS. HOW THE DEADLY STUFF IS MADE BY THE INDIANS. Heads of Rattlesnakes and Abdomens of Tarantula Killers Cooked Together The Thrilling Method of Testing A Secret Carefully Guarded. I had been a cattle ranchman on the plains of southeastern Arizona for some two years before I could find out how the Apaches poison their arrow tips. The Indians inherit from their ancestors ances-tors an intense secretiveness as to the manner of their preparation of venom for hunting or warlike purposes. A tribal trib-al chief years ago would as soon think of cutting off his own head as to let another an-other chief know some method peculiar to the tribe for preparing a powerful poison. Now that the savages use firearms fire-arms almost to the exclusion of their primitive weapons the older warriors will not, if they can, allow information concerning their tribal manufacture of venom to become known among the palefaces. I had in my employ a bright young Indian buck, who gave me full information concerning the way the plains Indians have for many genera- j tions made the poisonous fluids for their arrows. One day he went so far as to get permission for me to go over to the mountains to see a tribo of Yavapaia get their weapons in proper poisonous condition. Rattlesnakes afford most of the Apache Apa-che and Piuto Indians' venomous compounds. com-pounds. To see the savages prepare the poisons and try their efficacy on themselves them-selves is enough to distress even a frontiersman's fron-tiersman's droams. The bloated rattlesnake rattle-snake of the hot alkali deserts of Arizona Ari-zona or the panhandle of Texas makes the most powerful poison. There is no more hideous and deadly serpent in America than the bloated rattler. It is a terror even to an Apache Indian, and if there is one thing that is worse than a rattlesnake in the opinion of plainsmen plains-men and settlers in eastern Texas and Bouthern Arizona it is an Apache Indian. Indi-an. The Piutes, although a more cowardly cow-ardly gang than the Apaches, hold this rattlesnake in less horror, but they give it plenty of room. The Piutes draw on the snake for their poison after it is dead. The Apaches, in spite of their fear of the snake, make it contribute its venom to them while it is alive. The rattlesnake of the Arizona desert grows to a length of 6 feet and attains a girth of 6 inches at the thickest part. They have tremendous sets of rattles. This snake has fangs an inch long and is frequently fitted with two sets. ' The poison sacs at the base of these fangs are as big as a hazelnut. The snake is a bright yellow in color. . The desert rattlesnake is a dreadful enough customer any day in the year, but during August takes on the fullness of its frightfnlness, both in appearance and conduct About the middle of August, Au-gust, when the weather is insufferably hot, this 'snake becomes bloated from some cause until it is a third larger than its normal size. Its appearance is as if the snake had been blown up like a bladder or charged with gas like a balloon. bal-loon. This rattler is always sluggish aad slow in its movements, and like all of its kind usually makes an effort to et out of the way of its intruders, but in August it 6imply lies still in bloated repulsiveness and will not move f or any-thing, any-thing, being ready at all times to strike at everything that comes near it. As near as you can get at it, this rattlesnake rattle-snake at that time of the year is simply a swollen reservoir of venom. A Piute Indian who wishes to lay in a stock of poison for his arrows kills, at this time of year, siough of these rattlesnakes rat-tlesnakes for his purpose. He cuts off their heads and takes them to his lodge. He places in one of the rude earthen vessels that are among the Piute household house-hold effects ten or a dozen of these snake heads. To them he adds perhaps a pint of tarantula killer, as the big hairy Texan or Mexican spider is called, call-ed, or rather he puts the abdomen oi the spider in with the snake heads. This spider has a sting that injects a poison subtle enough almost to kill a tarantula ta-rantula instantly, which is itself about as poisonous a member cf the animal kingdom as one would care to meet. The poison sac of the tarantula killer is in the lower abdomen of the insect, and ife is this the Piute brave mixes with the rattlesnake heads. He then pours in a pint of water, seals the lid of the vessel ves-sel on with moist clay and places the vessel in a pit where he has made a bed of hot coals. He buries the vessel in these coals, and besides that builds a blazing fire on top of it. This fire is kept burning fiercely for several hours, when it is swept away, and the Indian digs his vessel out of the coals. With a long pole he knocks the lid off and does not venture near the pot until the steam that arises from it as soon as the lid is taken off entirely ceases to appear. The . Piutes say that to inhale the smallest quantity of that steam would be instant death. Whether that is true or not I-am not able to say, as I never saw it put to the test. After the fiery ordeal to which the snake heads are put is over, a brownish residuum remains in the bottom of the kettle. That is certainly cer-tainly Ihe double quintessence of poison, if its action on human blood, or, at least, Indian blooc, is any indication. The Piute always tests his poison before trusting his arrows to it. He cuts r, gash in the fleshy part of his leg and draws the blood, which he lets trickle down his leg. When the red stream has run down six or seven inches, he dips a stick in the poison and touches it to the lower end of the bloody streak. If th. poison is all right, it actually burns the blood almost like hot iron touched to water and rapidly runs up the trickling tric-kling stream. The Indian has his knife ready and scrapes the poisoned blood off. If it were permitted to reach th wound, it would be all up with the Piute. Pi-ute. The arrows are dipped into this poison, and the Indian feels that whatever what-ever such an arrow hits would much oetter not have been born. Exchange. Calderon de la Barca has quite an Imposing sound, yet literally translated translat-ed it reads Ship's Copper; Torquato Tasso means Chained Badger; Dante stands for Stag's Hide; Giovanni Boccao-cio, Boccao-cio, Jack Bigmouth; Bramante, the famous fa-mous architect, despite his melodious appellation, appears in the character of a Whiner, and Max Piccclomini is nothing noth-ing more or less than a Little Dwarf, t- Deutsche Warte. i . . |