Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1883-09-12
Snake In the Grass.

the darkness you can see IL all. lhere
is the wagon of lone emigrant fam
lily, its cover weather-worn and rent
to prove that the journey has been
long and weary. Ten feet away are
the embers of the fire on which the
evening meal was cooked. Between
the wagon and the fire is the rude bed
Of robes and blankets on which
mother and children are sleeping. On
the other side of the vehicle stand the
horses, munching at the short, sweet
grass or listening to the far-off voice
of the wolf.
That is the background. In the
foreground a sentinel sits with his
back to the solitary cottonwood. AT
his right-hand'. runs little brook-at
his left is the boundless prairie DER
which night has spread her mantle.
Forty feet away are wife and children
trusting in his vigilance. Overhead
gray-white clouds are driving across
the starlight heavens, and the moan
of the wind has an uneasy, nervous
sound. Away out on the prairie the
wolf gallops from knoll to knoll and
snuffs the air, and the coyote gnaws
at the bleached bones of the buffalo
and utters his short sharp cries of
hunger.
Is there danger? All day long as
the tired horses pulled the wagon at
a slow pace, the emigrant has care
full scanned the circle about him,
but without cause for uneasiness. He
knows he is in the Indian country
and for the last twenty-four hours his
nerves have been braced to hear their
dreaded war-whoop and to catch sight
of band riding down upon him.
1t is midnight as we find him. His
ear has been as keen as fox's and
his eye has not rested for a moment.
The stakes are human lives-his life
with the rest. The odds are ten to
one against him.
"Ah! if we were back at the old
home in Ohio! You remember the
old farmhouse hidden away among
the cherry and pear trees? There is
the highway, lined with dusty May
weeds. Half a mile below is the
quaint little school house where the
children learned their A, Be-. Half
a mile above is the bridge across the
-
The sentinel rouses up and rubs his
eyes. 1t was the creek talking to him.
AS he listened to its monotonous babble
it suddenly began to converse in plain
tongue. For a moment he is thrilled
and alarmed. He looks keenly about,
and he listens with bated breath.
There are the same sounds-the wall
of the coyotes-the munching of the
horses-the babbling of the brook
now and then half groan from one
of the children sleeping an uneasy
sleep. And now the brook talks
again
"There was the big brown barn full
Of sweet-smelling hay-the pasture
lot with its cows-the pond in which
the bare-legged children used to wade
the orchard with its burden of fruit.
Don't you remember how you used to
sit on the stoop at evening-time and
smoke your pipe and watch the chill
dren at play on the grass? How
peaceful everything was! There was
drowsy feeling in the summer air
the lazy hum of insects-the low
songs of the good wife as she rocked
baby to sleep-why, you sometimes
fell asleep and let your pipe drop
from"
The brook babbled and the man
slept. Aye! the sentinel who had
five lives in his keeping slept and
dreamed, and i'm his dreams wandered
back to the old home and heard the
old family sounds.
ash 1t was rustic in the grass
Turn to the left little more. There
it is! Thirty feet from the sleeping
man a rattlesnake rears its head above
the grass aud looks around. It's eyes
CLEAN like stars. The neck swells,
the tongue flashes in and out, and it
coils and uncoils itself as if in fierce
combat. Now it is advancing-now
it swerves to the right-now to the
left-now it halts and coils itself to
strike. 1t might creep up and bury
its fangs in the flesh of the sleeping
man, and it will! 1t crceps again.
1t glides through the grass like a
gleam-now to the right-now to the
left-now straight ahead.
"S-s-s-h ~
The serpent halts. Twenty feet
more and it could have struck the
sleeper, but some movement of his has
alarmed it, and it glides away for fifty
feet, as fast as q shadow travels.
Now look beyond the snake! Is it
a second serpent worming its way over
the ground to surround the sleeper