The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-07-21
TIJr MAN AND THE sNAKr

THE MAN AND THE SNAKE.
 All round the circle of the hills the dazzling sky pressed down unclouded
 to the touch of the parched rim-rdek. Between the hills the shallow basin lay baked and breathless Over it the tense air quivered with heat, Within, no bird futtered nor water purled nor green plant raised its head. Only the desert children, sage-brush and grease-wood and long -spined cac- tus, gray but never dying, lived on there in the drought, sterile and for bidding as the land which gave them birth.
 Everywhere was silence upon the place, everywhere was immoblity, save where the man lay and where be- side him the bound snake whirred and writhed and rattled in the impotent fury of fear.
 The man lay stretched on the hot earth stark naked, his face turned to the sky. A buckskin thong passed across his throat, and was drawn taunt between two roots of sage-brush. The moose which held hlsH ankles was se- cured about a cump3 of grease wood and both arms, thonged at the wrists, stretched wide as if in crucifixion Heavy bands of buckskin spanned his body so that to the prisoner there were but two possible movements, He could turn his head from side to side, facing on the one hand the snake, on the other the miniature forest of sage brush; and he could elench ahd un- clench his pinioned hands.
 In this last freedom the final ingen- uity of savage captors had found ex- presslon. With the left hand tight clenched, the snakes wild stroke fell just short of it's aim. Should sleep or insensiblity relax the fingers the reptiles head might overlap them,
 Since early morning, through the increasing heat of the day, the man had lain there, grim and silent as the gray hills around him, save when now and then he raised his hoacse voice in defiant shouts. The snake on the other hand, struggled and fought increasingly against the cord which held him, striking impartially at it, at the just removed fingers or at the wooden stake to which the cord was tied, grovellmg his body in the sandy earth, writhing and tugging with pro- truding tongue, and all the while translating in whirr and hiss the blind fear of his captivity,
 Sometimes the man turned his head to watch, once or twice when the snakes movements Jagged he slightly stirredhis fingers in the sand, the rouse each time was rewarded by the swift spring and fruitless stroke. But most ly he lay still all his mind bent on en- durance.
 The man had been placed there to die He knew 1t and the knowledge tinged his thoughts with a strange curiosity. There were three ways in which death might reach him; through the snake, through sunstroke or by the weary route of thirst and nunger The second and quickest of these ways the light mountain air, vibrantIy hot though it might be, was a part of the mans torment that was a part fthe mans tormnet that at any minute he might stretch forth his hand and by the movement invite an end, briefly indeed, but horrible to the mind, doubly horrible to the strain ed imagination.
 There was one other chance. An rainstorn, a heavy night dew in that barren place, would so stretch the slender buckskin thong which held the rattler that unaided he might reach and strike his victim, This was the element of uncertainty in the grim problem. This it was that sent the mans eyes searching the bare horizon with look half dread. half longing.
 On one of these weary journeys of sight a tiny speck above the western hills attracted him-a steady pin" point of the dazzling blue. He shut his eyes a moment in order to look again the more intently, and when he opened them, To! the dark points were TWO. He watched them uncompre- lendingly, as slowly and steadily high n air the moved from west to east. When at last in midheayen the suns sheer strength beat down his gaze, he was the lonelier for loss of this one sign of moyemente.
 The sense of heat had by now grown .ntR anguish. The mans exposed body