Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1906-02-15
Hair Turned White In A Single Night.

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st Paul's Episcopal Church. Among
other things, he told of one night he
spent while on an expedition to the
Great Falls of the Zambesi, in South
Africa, when the party camped in the
forest and told stories while stretched
around the fire.
In the company we've Oxford and
Cambridge men. graduate of Yale,
and another from Princeton, and some
how they got talking about Byron's
Prisoner of Chillon." Some one
asked the question if it were possible
for mans hair to turn white in q
single night. There was brisk dis
cussion on the point until some one
said:
"We'd better let old Bill Lee, sit
ting over there, settle the debate.
How about it, BillP"
The man addressed told story, a
true one, of his own experience in
answer.
He said that some years before he
had been mining further down the
country in a camp filled with all sorts
of strange characters from the very
ends of the earth, and some of them
about as desperate men as could be
found anywhere. His own claim was
about two miles out of the mining
settlement.
Usually he washed out his gold at
the end of each day and took it to
the bank. but once it so happened
that for two days he was too tired at
nightiall to take bis gold in. On the
evening of the third day he took all
his washings in gold dust for the three
days, and, digginga hole in the ground
within his tent, buried it and built
his campfire over it.
After his supper he lighted can.
die, stuck it on box and, lying down,
sank into the slumber of the health
fully tired. After time he was
awakened by feeling of something
cold stealing up his right leg. He
did not raise his body, but in the dim
light of the candle he was able to
make out the lower end of one of the
most poisonous snakes in Africa, a
snake whose bite is fatal.
Lee knew that if he moved his leg
the snake would bite him. and he lay
motionless for some time, wondering
what to do. After time it occurred
to him if the snake crawled to his alb
domen it would surely cause him to
move, which would arouse the SER
pent to strike SO he cautiously reach
ed down and frightened his belt, which
be had loosened for the night.
The snake moved forward slowly
and steadily he could feel it's cold,
clammy body ascending with the slow
ness of the hour hand of clock, and
the deliberateness of its motion caus-
ed an indescribable horror to rise in
him, and the cold sweat broke out on
his body. He could see no way out
of this fix, and he tried to resign him
self to death.
He decided to try to get his knife
out of his pocket, open 1t and cut the
pocket out of his trousers, in the hope
that when the snake reached that
point in his journey up his leg it
would thrust its head through, and
that then he might seize it back of
the head, hold it 80 it could not bite,
and crush its life out.
By dint of cautious manoeuvring
Lee finally got his knife and cut out
pocket and the cloth above it. But
when the snake reached the hole it
felt the cold air, from which it had
sought refuge in his trousers leg, and
did not come out.
Lee sank into trance, and after
a time he was aroused by feeling a
cold pressure on his forehead. he
opened his eyes and looked up. he
saw the form of a man bending over
him and heard hoarse voice say:
Don't move or I'll blow your
brains out !"
/ blow EN- out. old man, if it will
give you any pleasure" he answered
II don't care what You do"
The man was no doubt one Of the
desperate characters from the near
by camp. he had probably noted
that Lee had not gone to the banA
for two or three days, and figured OIL
laying his hands on fat little pile Of
gold dust.
he groped around the tent search