The Saint Paul globe., 1905-01-08


riddled. We went to Houston, a distance
of twenty miles or more. across a track
less prairie, never daring to tell our alli-
gator experience to any one
Stopped the Trains
ga few years back / was In the smoking
compartment of a sleeper going westward
between New Orleans and Burwick's s Bay,
now Morgan City, La There were several
gentlemen present, and never have been
backward in. coming forward in any sort of
a congregation of men. asked if there
was any man present who could remember
when this road was built and there was
none. Taking them all in as being under
thirty-fi five, / told them that I was going
to tell them truth in the way of what
might be termed a snake. fish or alligator
story.
sIn 1857 when this road was built by the
Harris Morgan company to shorten their
line between New Orleans and Galveston
by 400 miles-I was on the first train that
passed over it with passengers, in charge
of the express company's safe. At places on
the road where the filing had to be
brought a long distance there were any
where from one to a thousand alligators
for each railway tie,o and it frequently re-
quired two engines to take a train of
twelve cars through on this level road the
cowcatcher on the front engine being so
loaded down as to all but scrape the
rails. The a1ligators came from the
swan1pS on both sides to sun themselves
on the track, and have seen them rolled
off on both sides of the train, passing as
many as 500 to 10000 on each side of the
road twice a day in a distance of twenty
miles,
No headlight On the front of an ordi-
nary bicycle could shine as did the eyes
of the people in that smoker, looking at
each other as well as at me, when a
gentleman said:
Yes sir, believe it. My father was
locomotive engineer who ran on this
road at that time and he told me as much
Grabbed His Coat Tall
The worst snake story that I can give
a personal experience of I will relate, and
then another, and we will turn to bears.
I was hunting for quail in a rocky and
hilly country, in company with few
friends. On passing near by large
bowlder a rattlesnake sprang at me and
fastened his fangs in my coat tail, seeing
which flew screaming, the snake holding
on. I looked around and saw him stream
ing out to the rear, a distance that to
my eye measured somewhere in the neigh
borhood Of 500 feet. ran out of my
coat, and, arming myself with my gun,
went back to kill ffteen-inch rattle
snake that had but two rattles on his
tail
1.-The largest rattlesnake to be found
anywhere in the United States that have
knowledge of was in the lower Rio Grande
river country, in Texas and Mexico. They
came from the Colorado country, floating
down with the springtime freshets OH
logs and driftwood and when striking
salt water got back to land, and, true
to the laws Of nature, they were seldom
found crawling in any other direction
than northward The largest ever saw
measured fourteen inches in circumfer-
ence and eight feet nine inches long, hav-
ing tliirty-two rattles.
1.-THE rattlesnake that divides home with
the owl and the prairie dog in the north
west Texas plains is a small affair. but
is fighter, and, next to the ella MON
ster, the most poisonous Of all snake
tribes found in the Western countries. ]
am told that they as well as the prairie