The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1900-07-03

and there were other and worse chiefs
than he who helped to make Arizona the
living hell II was In those faraway days,
Few or no army posts existed there and
he who sought fortune in that wilder
ness did so with the conviction that kill
that We may live" must be the rule of
his life. Every murderer and blackleg
who found the rest of the frontier too
hot TO live in was sure of an asylum in
that desert. and between the deadly ami
NAL and deadlier human life, il was a
country into which none but the brave
dared venture, where might was right,
and the strong arm of the law had not
as yet even cast the shadow of It's future
coming. Such was the Arizona I knew
in 1870 5nd such country l pray Il may
never be my fate again to come in touch
with.
OF all the reptiles there the tarantula
was the worst, but almost as dangerous
was the white scorpion, for to his two
and a half inch body was attached a
sting that he could drive half inch into
a mans body and thus send the deadly
poison couring through his blood The
ella monster, in spite of his dangerous
reputation in the East, is not as danger
Gus as these others, but It is the veritable
horror of his appearance that gives him
his reputation. An overgrown and bloat-
ed lizard. frequently attaining length
of fifteen inches, he is fearful to behold,
his alligator-like body being of a dirty
dark gray and covered with a hard she'll
His bite, however, compared with those
of the others, is innocuous and need not
be fatal If the one bitten applies without
delay remedies to counterfeit the poison.
l think 1t was on this trip that wit
messed as strange a sight as I had ever
nf arfxy ytA haI
previously been in the country assured
us that he knew IL all and that a short
cut across the mountains would save us
many weary miles in our journey back
to camp. We took him at his work and
midnight found us just on the crest of
the divide, after fruitless hours spent in
trying TO follow a trail that had no ex-
istence. We were then in a cup-shapec
basin, the center of the cup being COW
everd over by, club chaparral and the
balance with sun-dried dead grass, and
there we decided 70 remain the rest Of
the night. lettering our weary horses
without unsaddling. we lay down to
catch an hour or two's rest.
THE Indian we had as guide contin-
ued Mr.. Alpertson, was tied by either
arm to two of the party. This was doe
for safetys sake, for In that God-for-
saken country there was no precaution
that looked toward safety Il was safe to
overlook. About an hour after we had
lain down the Indian suddenly let loose
a frightful yell and every man rolled over
on his stomach and covered him with his
rife. At the same time we became con-
scious of the kissing or numberless rat
tlesnakes and the awfel stencil their
bodies give off permeated the air Why
none Of us were bitten was a miracle, for
they were all over the place, and one Of
them crawling over his body was the
cause of the Indians yell. That club
chaparral was their home and they must
have inhabited IL by the thousand. After
we got the horses and ourselves to a place
of safety one of our number suggested
that we fire the place, and we accord
ingly touched the dry grass off. In a
moment the entire chaparral leaped into
fame and then occurred the weirdest OF
sights. for the snakes crawled up the
dwarf trees and projected their horrible
writing heads above the sea of fame
while from all about the great yellow
rattlers hurried into the ring of fire A
snakes by instinct, you know, rushes into,
not away from n nearby flame. To this
day II Is a vivid picture in my mind
that zone Of fire. with the swollen yellow
reptiles rushing into 1t and the heads,
with their gaping. .fork-tongued mouths,
rising above and falling beneath the leap
ing flames"