The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1875-07-09
BUNKING WITH SERPENTS.

Three Days After I'm Den of Rattle
snakes.
In Blooming Grove, Pike county, lives
the family of a man named Chas. Dun
ming, consisting of himself, his wife, and
three children aged six, four, and two
and half years. On Monday of last
week the children went out TO play in
the fields. After being absent some
time the two oldest returned weeping to
the house and said they had lost their
little brother in the woods. Mrs. Dun
ming, thinking she could find the child
without difficulty, went out into the
woods and looked for some distance
around, calling him by name. Being
unable to discover any trace of him she
became alarmed and fastened back to
the village and spread the news of the
child's loss. Blooming Grove is COM
posed mainly of the dwellings of the
employees Of Jacob Klienhan's tannery,
and when the news of the little boy s loss
became general the greatest excitement
prevailed. Business was stopped at the
tannery, and forty men started to scour
the woods in search of the child. All
the rest of the day they tramped through
the woods without finding any trace of
the missing little one, and all night pine
torches flashed through the forest aisles,
frightening from their perches myriads
of night birds, which answered with
their shrill cries the shouts of the men
calling to the child. During the night a
catamount was shot, but the morning
dawned upon an unsuccessful party of
sad-hearted villagers. After short rest
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day Tuesday and all Tuesday night was
prosecuted diligently, but with no better
result. The opinion now was general
that the child had been killed and eaten
by wild beasts, which still haunt the
Pike county wilderness.
The search was continued, however, at
the urgent appeal of the mother of the
boy. Toward noon on Wednesday one
of the party started away in direction
which had not been investigated as yet.
Passing about hundred yards through
a laurel swamp two miles from the vii
lage, he came out III an open space about
thirty feet square. The opening was
walled in on every side by thick growth
of laurel, and was well filled with large
rocks marked with crevices and large
seams, resembling an abandoned quarry.
The instant the man stepped into the
place, he was startled by the sound of
rattlesnake, giving him warning to pause.
Looking down, he saw the snake coiled
up, about four feet away. in readiness to
spring at the first provocatiOn. The
bachwoodsman had seen such things be-
fore, and, picking up club, dispatched
the snake ut one blow. He was not pre-
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lowed, however. CHANGING about him,
he made the unpleasant discovery that
he had intruded in place pre-empted
by colony of rattlesnakes in short, he
was III den of deadly reptiles. From
crevices and creases ON the rocks and on
the ground he saw numbers of them ly-
ing in various positions, bathing their
slim proportions in the sunshine. The
man made up his mind that the place
had no particular charm for him, and
was about to beat a hasty retreat, when
his eyes fell on q scene that transfxed
him with horror
On a low flat rock, not more than six
feet from where the man stood, lay the
apparently lifeless form of the little boy
they had been looking for SO long.
Stretched by his side, not more than
three inches away from him, was q huge
rattlesnake, while near his feet two more
lay coiled up, all evidently undisturbed
by the presence of the child. While the
man did not suppose for an instant that
the boy was alive, he determined to res
cue the body from so horrible sepul-
cher, and with well-directed blows from
his club killed the three snakes that held
possession of the child. Every blow was
responded to by the blood-curdling din
of rattles from the snakes that lay near
the rock. While he was examining the
ground between him and the child to see
if any of the reptiles lay on that side, he
was startled to see the supposed dead in
FAINT rise with an effort to q sitting posi-
ton, stare wildly about with a crazed,
haggard look, and then sink back upon
the rock. The next instant the stout
hearted woodman bad sprung upon the
rock, and Selling the child bore him
away quickly from the loathesome den,
and in few minutes placed him in the
arms of his distracted mother, amid the
general rejoicing of the whole village.
The child was unconscious, and is yet
lying in critical condition, being deliri-
Gus with fever brought on by the I'M
paralleled hardship and privation he
suffered in his three days wandering
alone In the forest before which the
stout-hearted hunter would have quailed.
Part To,.l,ie ( NJ w Union