The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-08-31
SHIVERY SNAKE STORY
HUNTER IMPRISONED IN a CABIN
WITH \ WARN OF RATTLERs.
Chances looked All Against Him, but
Fortune Favored Him and He
Killed the Serpents.
wrliamsport Pa) Letter in Philadelphia

w%illiamsport (Pa) Letter in Philadelphia
Big, strapping John Brungard, whose
home is up along Little Pine creek, had an
experience with rattlesnakes one night last
week that he will never forget. 1t came
near being his end. Brungard. who -
twenty-eight years Of age. and who has
hunted bear and deer since he was a boy
has an Unborn dread OF snakes. He is a
brave fellow all other times. but not when
his combatant is a reptile-especially a
RATHER. His last weeks experience was
enough to unnerve even one who IS much
less afraid of the "varmints," as the Pins
Checkers call the venomous serpents.
B%rungard was on a trout fishing expedi-
ton up towaTd the headwaters OF otter
run, a tributary of Little Pine creek ana
at least eight miles from his home. He
had Indifferent success and worked his way
much further w stream than he had in
tended. During the late afternoon a cold,
drilling rain set in. spraying the leaves
and soon soaking Brungard TO the sklr.
The indications were that the rain would
keep up all night. and as he had little
mind TO make the long trip home
through the bedraggled underbrush, he con-
Guided to spend the night in an old log
shanty that was once one of the buildings
of a lumber camp. but which of late years
had been rugged up as a bear hunters
shack" This cabin stands near the bank
of Otter run, fully four miles from its
mouth. and is sheltered by a grove of high
pine trees.
1t was dark when Brungard reached
the shanty. He was lucky enough to find
in the cabin a plentiful supply of split
pine sticks that had been left over by
the last hunting party. and with material
from this he soon had a rousing fire going
in the rickety stone hearth. He Invested
himself of his outer garments, stripping
to his underclOthes, so that the rain-soaked
clothes could be hung by the fire 10 or,S'
jerking on the end of a spit some OF the
trout he had caught, he ate a "roughers
supper, and then, with the aid of asputterihg
pine torch, he carried in enough hemiock
one corner of the shack" HemIock beds,
to the initiated, are cruel things, put 10
the regulation woodsman or trapper they
form a downy couch on which sleep Is
coaxed to the eyes in a jify.
COVERED BY BIG snake.
Brungard. piling the hearth high with
the wood, stretched himself on the hemlock
boughs and soon slept. He was awakened
some time during the night by something
heavy and soft striking his legs, as though
somebody had thrown a dead eat or a sand
bag on him. But the thing that struck
him was a hundred times worse than sand
bags or old cats. 1t was a rattlesnake. The
fire was still burning bright enough to
illuminate the interior of the cabin, and in
the circle of light that danced around the
fire the now stary-eyed Brungard beheld
no less than three rattleSnakes on the floor.
At that instant. having drawn his legs
away from the dangerous company, he be-
came still more Mortified to find that there
upon his hemlock bed was cOiled still an
other reptile. Then it was that he realized
what il was that had fallen upon his legs.
1t was the RATHER. CHANGING up to see
where the ugly thing might have come
from, his eyes met the swaying, menacing
head of another rattlesnake, eight inches Of
which stuck out from one of the chinks be-
tween the old logs.
Brungard, by this time half mad with
terror, thought only of escape. He knew
that he was in the very centre of 9 den of
deadly enemies, who during the DAY had
taken refuge off the wet ground by crawl
ing into the chinks of the cabin, then when
his fire had warmed them into activity the
snakes had blindly twisted themselves to-
ward the hearth. falling and crawling over
himself and his bed. How many of the
snakes were there he could not tell. There
might be a score or more, for il is charac-
%tesistic of these venomous reptiles to col
oniZe.
Making sure that there were no more
snakes in the corner in which he had
crouched, Brungard, half-crouched, half on
his knees, took time to recOnnoiter. There
was but one way of escape-through the
door-for the two little windows in the
shack were high above the floor, and
their deep sockets, for all he knew, might
be the resting place for more OF the dan
gerous %rattlers. His moving about had
aroused the snakes, and by this time an
ominous chorus of rafting filled the cabin,
even louder than the swapping sticks on the
fire. Brungard, too. could smell the nause-
ating reptiles, which, when confined in
close quarters. emit a sickening odOr.
He would have bounded across the floor
lickety-split and out of the door had 1t not
been for the very fact that upon the very
threshold two Of the very largest snakes
haG stationed themselves, apparently on
spring, a half arms length of their bodies
swaying a foot above the floor. Brungar
counted again. By this. time the snake
on the floor being the big fellow whose
head he had seen out of the Chink above
his bed. If he but had his boots on he
could have run the risk of leaping through
the gantlet. but there he was, dressed only
in his underclotles and stockings.
DEATH STARED HIM IN TIE FACE.
He knew how quick a RATHER is and shud-
dered at the thought of an attempt to get
past the now aroused snakes without be-
ing bitten, and TO be bitten there in that
cabin. alone and far from help, would
doubtless mean a horrible death. lie
shouted at the top of his voice, but the
snakes only grew the uglier, and ratified
the louder. Indeed, his shouting had the
effect Of bringing still another snake from
the chinks of the hut, and it, too, went
"kerplunk' down into the charmed circle
TO add its danger signal to the rhythm OF
rafting.
Poor BrunSard! and to make the situa-
ton yet more menacing, he saw that the
6re-unless the wood were shaken dowr
upon the embers-would soon die out and
its light be withdrawn from the chambe!
of horrors. leaving him alone with the
snakes in the darkness. He was sQueamist
at the stomach from the siCkening OleI
exuded from the snakes. and a cold per.
spiTatiOn stood out on his body because
of the terror that possessed him. He hall
settled. half tell back into the corner. hut
instantly he recoiled. for his body touched
something that moved and ratified, and in.
| voluntarily he cried aloud for help.
But the very thing that had frightened
I him almost out of mis- senses was the thin.
p