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Show ADVENTURERS' CLUB J - .X1 HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES V OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF! VJ "Fanged Death" HELLO, EVERYBODY: Distinguished Adventurer Graham Babcock of Pater-son, Pater-son, N. J., takes the Adventurers' club rostrum today, and Graham wins ten bucks because he wouldn't take another fellow's advice. If he'd done what that fellow told him to he'd have had no story to tell us today. But Graham paid no attention to that fellow, and the result is one of the most thrilling, blood-curdling adventure yarns I've seen in a coon's age. It was in August, 1913. Graham was just seventeen years old, lived in Suffern, N. Y., and spent his spare time hunting in the Ramapo mountains, in season and out. At the time, hunting was out of season, so Graham carried his rifle in a gun case and took along a fishing basket, just in case he happened to meet up with a game warden. Game wardens can put you in the jug for hunting in August, but there's no law against fishing for minnies at that time of year. Graham started out up the tracks of the Erie railroad and walked as far as the Ramapo crdssing. From there he planned to cut into the mountains, but the crossing tender, an old friend of his and an old-timer in that section tried to dissuade him. "There's a rattlesnake den just up the side of that gully," he said, "and rattlers are mean at this time of year. Better go in up the track a ways." Graham Unknowingly Walks Into Nest of Snakes. But Graham had seen rattlers before and he wasn't afraid of them. Whenever he'd come on them they had always wriggled out of sight as fast as they could. He forgot, though, that a nest of rattlers in the late summer season might actually be LOOKING for trouble. Graham climbed up the side of the hill and walked along a ridge until he came to a place where a big boulder jutted out over the edge of a small cliff. There wasn't a rattler in sight, and he began to think he must have passed the nest the crossing tender had spoken of. He saw some berry bushes a few yards away and set his gun and fishing I remembered everything I bad ever heard about rattlers. basket down on the boulder while he climbed up to pick a few berries. But Graham never picked so much as a single berry. The minute he reached for them, things began to happen. As he stooped down to part the leaves of the first bush, a rattler shot out from beneath It and landed almost at his feet. Graham leaped back. As he did, the skirring ruffle of another rattler sounded from a niche in the rock just over his head. Then, all at once, that sound was repeated from a dozen directions. direc-tions. From the right. From the left. From behind him! The sound swelled into a low, ominous bum. Graham realized, then, that he was right in the middle of that nest of vipers. He took a quick step forward and stopped dead in his tracks. "A big one lay right in my path," be says, "coiled and ready to strike, its whole body swelling and deflating with anger, as if it were being blown up by a bellows. Its tail sounded its threatening war-note and its head was flattened and drawn back for the kill. I tried to back up, and right behind me near a rotted tree trunk another one reared its head and rattled and hissed. "Talk about things flashing through your mind! In a split second I remembered everything I had ever heard about rattlers. I remembered my grandfather telling that this was the worst time of year to be bitten, for in late August when the rattler is about to seek his winter quarters his venom is twice as poisonous as it is at other times. And I remembered remem-bered hearing that the speed with which the venom takes effect depends on. where you are bitten. My uncle once told me of a woman bitten in the breast who lived just 17 minutes." Those thoughts went through Graham's mind in just the smallest fraction of a second, and they stirred him into action. Over his head was a tree limb. He leaped for it, caught it, and swung out from between be-tween the snakes that had him cornered. He landed in an open space, grabbed up a stick and began flailing the bushes to right and left. "I made for the boulder where I had left my gun and fishing basket," he says, "still beating frantically with my stick. Another snake struck at the stick, and I threw it away as hard as I could and tore through the bushes like a madman." Suddenly He Heard Another Low-Pitched, Ominous Hum. Graham reached the boulder where he had left his gun, out ' of breath and shaking like a leaf. He had hurt his knee in his mad scramble through the brush and now, believing himself out of danger he sat down to look it over. And then, suddenly, he beard another low-pitched, ominous buzz. Says he: "I looked back over my shoulder just in time to see another big rattler leap at me. How I ever' did it I'll never know, but from a sitting position, without getting to my feet, I actually jumped three feet to one side, and the snake missed me by a foot. It knocked over the basket and landed coiled right on my gun case. I ran to the left edge of the boulder and broke a limb from a green sapling as if it were a pipe-stem. I saw the infuriated snake make ready for another strike and I knew it wouldn't miss this time. "Behind me was the cliff. In front of me was the snake, and I couldn't get off the boulder without getting in range of its strike. Then I saw two other rattlers edging up to join in the attack, and although it was a terrible jump I preferred the cliff to death by snake-bite. I hesitated only an instant, hoped for the best, and leaped into space." The top of a cedar tree broke Graham's fall. He landed in a bed of pine needles below it and he says he fairly bounced as he landed. "Luck was with me," he says, "and the only injuries I suffered were the terrible scratches on my body, arms and face. I went home leaving my gun and basket right where they were, and I didn't go back for them until after cold weather set in and the snake's were all holed up in their winter quarters." Copyright. WNU Service. |