The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1894-07-04
EARNED 500 IN TWO HOURS.
Ne,p York Sun.

less than 81 per snake. I was in hard
luck on the coast and happened to
drift into the fine gold districts of San
Joaquin, where company was work
ing the white quartz mine. At the
time I dropped in on EN- they found
that they had to bring back into SER
vice again shaft that had been aban-
doned several years before. This
shaft was eighty feet deep, and there
was tunnel at the bottom of the same
length.
Through long disuse the shaft had
become choked with debris at the
mouth of the tunnel and it had to be
cleaned out before the shaft could be
used again.
"The very day that I got there the
company had sent two workmen down
the shaft to dig out the debris, but
hardly had they landed at the bottom
before they signalled frantically to be
hauled up. When the bucket got to
the top the two men were covering in
the bottom of the bucket pale as
ghosts, and SO nearly frightened
to death that they had to be help
ed out. 1t was some time before
they were able to give an explonatian.
"Rattlesnakes was what allied them.
The shaft, they said, was full Of rat
| tlesnakes, lying about everywhere,
big and ugly. They were so thick,
| they declared, that the noise of their
rattles, in the depths of the shaft,
when the men disturbed the colony,
| almost made them deaf. The men had
not dared step from the tub, but had
signalled hastily to be raised to the
surface.
"a lantern lowered to the bottom Of
the shaft showed that the men knew
what they were talking about. The
depths were literally alive with big
rattlers, and they writhed and twisted
about, furious at the intrusion of light
among them. Some Of the savage
chaps struck their fangs against the
glass of the lantern, SO that we could
hear the sound of the contact where
we stood gazing down on the cheerful
sight from the mouth Of the shaft,
! and the noise of the fierce chorus Of
rattles was like the rasping Of field
full of Kansas locusts. The sight
and sound made me homesick. l
had not heard anything like that for
years-not since I left .ny native
place in the Big Coon country, Ten
nessee.
"That rattlesnake music at the bot
tom Of the shaft way out on the Pa
cifc coast made me homesick. | be-
gan to pine for the Big Coon country,
but I haven't cent. If I hadn't
been 80 homesick I don't believe I'D
have jumped at the offer the su-
perintendent of the mine made
after he found there was no other
way to get those rattlers out of that
shaft.
"'I will give one hundred dollars in
| gold,' he said, {" to any one who will
clean out them snakes
II stepped to the front.
"'Make it hundred in gold and o
quart of whiskey and I'll 60 you! l
said.
'sHe added the whiskey and we
closed the deal right there. I borrow
ed pair of buokskin leggings and a
pair of buckskin gloves. Aiming my.
self with long club and the bottle OF
whiskey, and taking lantern, I jump
ed into the tub, and they lowered me
to the bottom Of the shaft. I hadn't
| intended to be hoisted until | had
bagged all the rattlers in sight. But
after thrashing away for twenty min.
utes at the snakes as they hurried
away to hiding places or showed fight,
and killing all that I could get my
club in on, the poisonous odor that
exudes from those deadly reptiles
when they are angered was too much
for me. Even the Pacific coast
whiskey couldn't counteract it, and
| I felt myself growing dizzy and faint.
ri had thrown into the tub the rat
tiers I had killed and was getting into
|. it myself to signal for hoist before
II~ succumbed to the noxious rattle
snake air was breathing when, in a
niche in one side of the shaft, even
with my shoulder, not foot and half
away from my throat, [ caught sight
of a big rattler coiled and ready to
strike.
mechanically threw my head and
shoulders back, just as the snake
launched his big, arrow-like head at
my throat. That movement Of mine
saved me. The rattler's aim fell
short. His fangs were buried in the
collar of my coat, an inch from my
iuglar. I instantly clutched the rep
tile with one hand around its neck,
and with the other, as I tumbled un-
consciously into the tub, pulled the
rope: Pc a;d not lnou when haessed
the top, but the superintendent lold
me when I came to that when the
men who were at the windlass saw me,
they dropped the crank and ran. But
for the fortunate presence of a stall
wart Mexican, giant miner named
Valarez, who caught the crank as it
came around and held it, [ would have
gone plunging back to the bottom OF
the shaft, and my fate would not have
been pleasant.
"And I can't say that I blamed the
men much who were manning that
.windlass. Lying in the bottom of the
tub, apparently dead, I was still
clutching the big rattler by the throat,
his fangs almost in mine, and lying
about me were twenty-seven enormous
and hideous-looking rattlers, victims
of my club. Seems to me I'd have
dropped something myself. and ran if
I had seen such sight as that coming
up out Of the dark depths Of a mine
shaft.
"I revived in few minutes, and
was soon feeling in shape to 60 down
and finish my contract. | don't know
how I could have done it, but in the
twenty minutes I was in the shaft l
had drank half of the quart of whis-
| key. I remained in the bottom forty
live minutes that trip, and brought
out tifty-seven dead rattlers to the
surface. I had to chase some Of them
into the sloping tunnel. l had abb
sorbed the remainder OF the whlskey,
and when made my third trip, ten
| :4,, ,f+o, T oopn nm I took down