The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1900-08-11
M T is fact that snake can
NNSjf hypnotize. He can hypnotic
Ira grown man just a: easy as
f*S4he can child" says Perry
Brigham, an old mining pros

plains not great ways from Denver. I
vas plodding over the prairies, or rather
buffalo grass, afoot. I'd been walking a
couple of hours, I guess. and kinder cas-
tally happened to notice what appeared
% be a stout stick with the end Of 1t
znotted and rising up little over the
grass. I paid no particular attention to
t until, for some reason, I seemed to
Dear all my thoughts onto that stick. AS
looked again I found that was looking
At a monstrous big rattlesnake. He
hadn't ratified, nor given any warning,
out there he was. with his head raised
| up there, like picket, kinder surveying
things, and especially me.
my, but he was a. tremendous big fell
Ter! I don't want to exaggerate or any
thing, but, honestly, I believe he was
July as long as his billiard table,. He
was running his old tongue out and SEEM
ing to say, We'll, what are you going to
do about? Want fght?' I just stopped
stock still. Didn't jump nor nothing, for
I'd seen too much of reptiles and things
to let 'em excite me any. I stood there,
with my hands at my sides and merely
L
know, old Teller, whether I want to tackle
you or not. 1 don't know He kept a
darting out his tongue and looking di-
rectly al me.
''There we T should think for fully
five minutes, each of us sizing the other
up. Each not afraid of the other, vet
neither eager to open battle The longer
l looked the more it seemed as if I was
powerless to move or do anything. I
wasn't very much scared, but I seemed to
be attracted somehow. My eyes were
fixed right on the snakes eyes, and u
don't believe that 1 could have taken
them off Of him. The old Teller WANT
making a move to attack me- If he had
think I'd been all right and could have
fought for all I was worth.
1T was not, tell you, the hypnotism or
magnetism of fear. 1t was a feeling that I
cannot explain further than to saw I couldn't
take my eyes off of him. If had been closer
1 m actually afraid 1 should have had an un-
controlable impulse to reach out my hand
ana touch MIN. Then L d got bit, sure's blazes
We kept looking at each other until something
stirred off in the grass nearby, and MY! that
snake turned and went. like streak They
san go mighty fast when they're mind to,
though It's generally supposed that rattle
snakes are slow and sluggish. ...-. .-.--. ~ -.
We'll, the minute he stirred, see? was all
right. Been brought back to my senses as it
was, and ran after him as fast as I could
reached hole few hundred yards off,
rratr'e dog or rabbit hole, don't know which,
and when he went into the hole got close
enough to him and he did very peculiar
thing. He didn't go in head first as you'd
naturally expect, Of course, but it seemed as
IT he wtggled into it around in such
me. He *crter doubled, you understand, and
got himself into the hole so that he could be
ready for me if I made for him. I.watched
him for several minutes more. and there he
was. Just ST. you could barely make out his
ugly three-cornered head, laying there at the
entrance waiting for all visitors Now, want
t. confess that that there dirty brown RATHER
lad me as much under the spell any
mortal ever was by all the arts Of the profess
sional hypnotst. Some folks claim it's all
tosh and imagination, but assure YOU a.
snake will hypnotic any creature that will
keep perfectly still and watch the varmint
Il was out about forty miles south of Denver
when we came on to a perfect army Of rat
tiers. 1t was early in the spring and had just
got warm enough for the snakes to get out of
| their winter quarters and into the sunshine.
There was a sort Of high, sandy place of some
hundred feet in circumference and the snakes
was out there a-heating up. Oh, there must
have been two hundred of 'em at least! The
air was Just sickening with that stencil that
rattlesnakes make and an incessant rafting
and buzzing. I don't know scarcely what
made me take the notion. but I says to my
partner:
"Let's go through them fellers'
" All right he says, and he took a saw
from his kit and I pulled out another.
I'VE went to swinging them saws and if we
didn't work! With all the strength and quick
ness we could muster we Topped off heads right
and left. Hiss sizzle, rattle clatter, buzz,
torked tongues, wiggling varmints, and holy
doses. the stencil! You couldn't stood that
stencil long. A dozen times 1 caught rat
tiers head just in the nick of time. We
swung the saws SO fast and the danger was
SO close we sweat like slaves. We must have
been ten minutes working way through
There were scores of the varmints that we
killed and scores more that hustled off through
the grass, but when we got on the other side
of the space them were covered with
virus and I guess both Of wouldn't have
tackled that job again for considerable. 1
didn't want anything to eat for week almost.
shall never forget, by the way, being down
in Florida. I was visiting a relative who had
place there an orange grove. Out back of
his house there was sort Of a boWer-like, a
summer house I guess you'd call it, lattice
work, and over 1t was trailing vine, honey
suckle and such. I put away a big dinner and
feeling kinder drowsy, thought I'd 60 out to
that summer house and read or doze for a
while. picked up book that laying
about the room and kinder fell to reading. 1t
was one Of them sleepy, dopey yaler novels.
Well, read on for spell and then 1 grad
ually began to get snoozish Suddenly some
thing fell ker-thoop, squash right down from
| the roof and not a foot from me. Twas a rat.
tier! I'm pretty bald, you see, but what little
hair I did have stood right up straight, now
Cont you forget it. Got me? Oh, but he got
me easy + he'd meant to fight, but by George,
he was for getting away quick as he come.
He started off like flash and after him.
chased the critter hundred yards and killed
him. He was about three feet long.
Florida is nothing much but snakes. There
are thousands Of these water moccasins You
go out fishing and you see 'em on the bank
coiled ON the overhanging limbs OF trees and in
the shallow water. They lay in near the shore
with their body all in the water and only their
head out, resting on a twig Or log It's too
snaky country for me. Why, they were
seems they had some extra wall paper they'd
laid away In closet. One of the young wom-
en- stepped in there and picked up a roll of pa
per She suddenly let out screech that stirred
the Whoie mouse, and when run in there was
young RATHER nicely coied in the center Of
the room and ready for trouble. killed him
quick with broom handle and when we got
the girl Gained down she could talk we
found shed taken the, snake from the closet f..
that roll of paper.
1T takes blacksnake to trim rattIer,
though t1acksnake'll whip rattler e.ery
time and a rattIer knows it. He'll get out OF
the way and run from blacksnake If he pos
sibly can. II he gets attacked, he coils him
self ard sounds his rattle as savagely as he
can ana Keeps his tongue going, but IL you
! know anything of snakes and should ever
happen to get chance to watch a battle.
you'll have an impression that the ra.tIer acts
as if he knew it was likely to be all day with
him. The blacksnake keeps going round and
round him. just as pugiist in the ring keep.
moving round his man, waiting for an open
ing. The RATHER gets more and more worried
All of sudden, quick's lightning, the black.
snake springs at the rattler. He aims to get
him right under the head, at the small of the
neck. If the blacksnake can get his tail
round root or something that will hold,
50 he can get purchase. is good-by RATHER in
very short time. He just squeezes the life
out of him.
| There little RATHER they have out on
the plains that - just as poison as the big
felerA don't know q snx Reeit 4sm4