The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1895-06-01
SOME STRANGE SHOWERS
Visible Only. to tho Alcoholi2ed
Vision OF Tipplers.

Visible Only. TO tho AICohou3eo
Vision OF TipplsrA
1oenlAss Abeus Lisards and OtAse
omau Deer Desesading 1rom
tAs CloaAa .-@s
Col. Bixby, Judge Dukes and MAI
Finney came over from the Barstow
diRgings one evening recently with
= big story about . storm few
evenings before on the Laramie plains
in which it rained lizards. They had
been over the divide to the Waterman
ranch. and on returning were over
taken by . gale, which presently
brought rain. For an hour or so 1t
poured in torrents, and then, just at
dusk, they felt something solid strik-
ing them occasionally. At length the
colonel, who was sitting on the back
seat, says writer in the New York
Sun, reached down into the wagon box
aud pulled out q ''water dog" about
six inches long. This convinced the
tourists that an extraordinary storm
was in progress, and to some extent
prepared them for what followed.
"Little by ittle," said the Judge,
the bombardment increased, until liz
ards and toads were thicker'n flies. We
turned up our coat collars and pulled
down our hats, but it did no good.
They'd strike us in the face, in the lap,
on the back and all over, and the
horses became wild with terror. We
lost our way, and the major got out to
look at the ground, but jumped back
into the wagon again with yell, say
ing it was knee deep with lizards. By
this time it had stopped raining and we
came to the conclusion, after mature
reflection, that the area Of the storm
could not be large, and that If we
moved straight ahead in almost any di-
rection we would soon be out of it.
Acting ON this determination we start
ed up again, and in the course Of half
an hour we struck hard ground. We
camped near there, and when daylight
came we went back ways and exam
ined the lizards. There were millions
of them, the great majority of them
being dead as the result of their fall;
but there were plenty of live ones, and
the way they were crawling was eau
ton"
Some one having asked what theory
they had to advance in explanation of
this visitation, the major said that
there was lake on the summit of the
mountain of toward Banning that was
full of lizards, and he had no doubt.
that the wind, which was very high,
had scooped out that body Of water
with all it's contents and dumped them
on the Laramie plains. He knew of .
similar case in Kansas. A tornado had
followed the line of q river and scooped
it out so clean for a distance of nine-
teen miles that farmers living thlrty
miles from the stream found fish, tur-
ties and frogs in their front dooryards,
and believed they had rained down.
The colonel said he had brought few
of the lizards in to show the folks, and
he would get them, but, after search.
ing the wagon box in vain. he wa
forced to apologize by saying that they
had prob ably come to life and crawled
away.
Capt. Nelson, the saloonkeeper, who
had been q patient listener, shook his
head and said:
ssOld Hank Moore was the only man
I ever knew who could get 'em and DO
kind Of pleasant and sociable with
'em. He never made no fuss, never got
excited, and never got scared. He'd
be walking along on the sidewalk, and
all of . sudden he would see little
baby elephant ahead of him, and would
run along and try to climb on his back.
Then, when he'd fall, he'd swear that
somebody tripped him up, and he'd get
all over it. An hour later he would
get you OF in the corner and tell you
confdentially that he wanted . drink.
but that he couldn't swallow it unless
you took that alligator OF the ,bar.
I've seen Hank go out in the street lots
of times to avoid stepping on toad
that he thought he saw. But he was
always happy and good natured about
it. He could see more elephants in .
minute than any man. you ever knew,
and sometimes when they were partic-
ularly thick he would get up . dance
with them. He was pleasant man to
have around. When he got the tre-
mems, he would always get them right,
and nobody was the worse for it.
Zone day he came in from the Dodge
City plains with long story shout sse-
ing drove Of elephants out there. I
didn't know him 20 well then as / did
afterward, and he was 90 quiet about
it that I believed him, and just Tor the
fun Of the thing drove ont there with
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