The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-06-08
5 GROUNDED BY SERPENTS.
TERRIBLE BATTLE OF Tzn1r MEN
WITH A SEA OF SNAKES.
A Terrible Albright Battle with Thousands
of Writhing Monsicrs--Narrow Escape
from n Horrible Death.

train thought (says the Leadville
Chr0nicl3) three men who had just
passed through an ord al that is terri
bic to contemplate, and their many
wounds go to show that the story they
tel is but too true and horrible in its
details. The men are +. w. Smith
and George III. White, Jr., of Pueblo,
and Thomas McGough, OF Colorado
Springs. They detail the account of
their adv; nture about Is 70 lows: Nine
miles f.om the mouth Cf Cottonwood
Creek, up the sire am, is a barren
wilderness of scrubby underground
and boulders, and rocks, and stones.
To stand on the verdant shore of this
sea of waste land, one would natur-
ally conclude that they were not
many miles away from nowhere, and,
for aught they knew, were the first
to discover this blank sea of waste,
barren, worthless fly-speck on the
shirt-front of creation. The men
were on a fishing expedition, and
started Wednesday morning from the
mouth of the Minnehaha stream to
wend and wade their way toward its
source, when they reached the spot
above mentioned. Here night over
reached them, and, having a lunch,
they built a fire and made themselves
as comfortable as possible on the sur
face of a scraggy messed rock. Being
tired and %footsore, as soon as their
scnty repast was eagerly devoured
they were soon reveling in dreams that,
perhaps, are more or less pleasant to
the mind while fitting in the realms
of such fancies. One of the party had
not been tangled with Morpheus long
until he was awakened by something
choking him, and, feeling, found his
strange collar was cold and Shiny. 1t
was a very fine specimen Of the black
snake species, which was girding his
throttle in its anything but loving
embrace. The monster was soon dis
patched, and the party were about to
lie down again after Kidding them
selves of his snakeship, when they
found by the aid of the dying embers
and the assistance afforded by
the quarter moon that they were
literally surrounded by the venom
tongued trailers. Two of the party
proposed to decamp for a more congo
NAL cine, but when about to leave the
rock they found themselves trampling
on a living sea of serpents. The hiss
ing and rafting became more audible,
and 1t was but a few minutes until it
was as loud as ordinary toned voices.
The men, finding they were thus sur
rounded, broke branches from the
stubby underground of pines and COM
menced flashing the writing sea of
darting, Kissing snakes. Railing
that they had an all-night job, they
largest sticks obtainabe and COM
menced the killing in earnest. The
light and noise seemed to awaken the
whole barren waste into a tempest of
kissing and rafting. Each began the
slaughter with reioubled vgor, vainly
endeayoring to fight their way to the
stream, some hundred yards away,
down a slanting hill. They would
gain a few PAGES of the distance, only
to lie driven back again to the
rock. The rafting and kissing
became SO loud that their voices
were not audible unless close by. The
sound was something like four or five
wheat separators in operation at one
time. 1t was terrible. The hair on
their heads was standing straight and
stiff like the wires on a patent hair
brush. Their hands and arms were
bloodstained to their elbows. and the
stencil from the snaky battlefield was
sickeninginthe extreme Onehour after
fha Gr,f c.olrn ,un- lr.lInI nA lacC thnn
5000 lay slain, and they kept coming
thicker and faster. Two of the men
were bitten, and their legs and arms
began to swell and pain badly, and
they frequently hal to rest and permit
one to do the killing of three. The
hours wore slowly by, and the slaugh-
ter was kept up as best they could.
At last morning came and lifted the
curtain of night from a most appall-
ing scene. For fifty feet all around
the huge rocks lay a heap of stunned,
squirming and dead snakes. AS far
as they could see all around the
barren waste was a seething tide of
reptiles that came toward the rock
with maddening fury. COncludingthat
they might as well earn death by a
dearer fate, they made ready to run
for the stream, thinking that if they
gained the other side they would have
a better chance to care for their
wounds. Leaping as far as possible
from the rock, they ran. frantic,
struggling, bitten, and, wild with
pain, they plunged into the water and
reached the other side, completely
overcome by the terrible ordeal just
passed through, and after some time
bandaged their bleeding and swollen
limbs.
By 9 o'clock they were sufficiently
recovered to continue to Cottonwood
Springs, where they took the first train
for Leadville to secure medical aid,
arriving here last night. The unfor-
tunate men are now under the care of
DR.. d. II. Dougan. They described
the snakes as being specimens of all
kinds, such as adders, vipers, copper
heads, milk, house, green and black,