Windham County reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1901-1906, 1906-12-28

words of prayer, he fought against thu
fate which held him.
Not once, but many times, the strug
! gle was repeated. When at last, ex
| hausted. his convulsed body fell back
TO quiet, the bird was gone Shudder
ingly the man raised his eyes. Far up
half lost in blue, but ready, tireless, il
hung above him.
Turning his blanched cheek to the
/ sand, he fell into sort of sleep. All
through the waning day he slept
| through the approach of night and the
swift desert change from heat to cold.
When he awoke the first pale amethyst
of dawn was in the sky. The snake
was sleeping, not as snakes are wont to
sleep in freedom, head tucked to tail
and sinuous fold tapping on fold, but
with his swollen body backthrown and
stiffened against the stake which held
him, caught mid-struggle by insensi-
bility,
The man turned his head to face him.
"Hey, rattler!" he called cheerily,
and scraped some grains of sand toward
the recumbent body.
But when he saw the start and shud.
der with which the creature woke, the
anguish of returning consciousness, sud
denly he was sorry for his act. When
the snake, writhing round, struck at its
cord quivering from head to tail, he
would have given an hour of his own
rest to have restored the sleep which he
had broken.
The sun rose presently. Again the
weary panorama of the day unrolled be-
fore the eyes of the two victims. The
snake was quiet, weakened by his long
struggle. The man, strengthened by
sleep, restored by the night S cold, held
himself strongly in hand.
Watching the Indifference of the rep
tile, the man feared less Fixing his
eyes upon it, he could hold hard to san
ity and to endurance, though around
him perched and lowered the vulture
ministers of death.
But as the morning passed new
anxiety came upon him. Suppose the
snake should die first. 1t seemed to
weaken with every hour and the man
trembled. He spoke to it soothingly at
times and had, or believed he had, the |
power of quoting its paroxysms. In his
fevered mind he searched haltingly for
some knowledge of it's needs. Would it |
live longer for the taking of his life!
And if by stretching out his hand he
could delay its end, what then of the
frightening of its paint
Before his dimming eyes the snake
loomed, now refuge, now menace.
A dozen times he half relaxed his hand,
only to draw it close again. Once, when
the snake fell in its spring, seemingly
lead, he thrust the fingers wide with a
Try of utter deprivation. When it
moved again he drew them in, the in
,tinctive love of life still strong upon
lim.
He closed his eyes after this and for
, long time lay still, only rolling his
lead from side to side that the vultures
night not light upon his body.
At last, when the sun lay low on the
lorizon, he ceased the movement and
lgain looked about him. Overhead
loud of birds, scared by the sudden
luiet, hung high in air; the sagebrush
II around rustled with pungent dryness
md to the west the sky burned hard
nd bright as FURNISHED copper.
For a long time he waited. Then,
With sobbing breath, he flung round,
training his body against the cords
which held him.
The snake, too, had moved. The ,
hong that bound it was drawn taut,
nd painfully it had thrust its swollen
cad across the fingers. 1t lay thus, ,
not striking, its glazing
yes on the mans face.
And while they lay so suddenly there j
anne to pass the impossible, the one I'M