Daily Arizona silver belt., 1907-06-06
KING AND RATHER
 IN MORTAL COMBAT
Victory, as Usual, Rests With the Wor-
 thier Reptile

Anson H. Smith of the Mohave Miner
 is member of the church. temper
 anee man and otherwise a reputable
 citizen, otherwise the following descrip-
 ton by the Miner of a snake fight might
 be reproduced with justifable hesita.
 tion, says the Phoenix Republican,: cone of the fereest and most san
 guinary battles to the death between
 large rattlesnake and kingsnake ever
 witnessed, took place in the edge of the
 great palm forest, south of Yucca, Ari-
 zona, few days ago. R. P. Wheeler,
 superintendent of the Big Sandy Min
 ing company, and two companions were
 driving from Signal to Castenada s
 We'll and found the snakes in fierce
 combat in the road. For more than an
 hour they watched the tide of battle
 with unusual interest The snakes
 fought warily, but. like flash the
 kingsnake gripped the rattler close to
 the head and was folding itself coil
 after coil around the body of its an
 tagonist. Near the middle of the rat
 tier the kingsnake had formed run ming knot of his body like figure s and in it's creepy folds was soon crush ing out the others life.
 "With desperate effort the rattler freed its head from the grip of the kingsnake and like a flash of light was sinking it's deadly fangs into the oth- er's body. Time after time the rattler s head quivered and flashed as it struck its poison-heeked fangs against the sides of the writhing kingsnake until at last they became fastened in it's body, requiring an effort to loosen the hold. During all this time the snakes were writhing and beating up the sands of the road into such a cloud of dust that their movements could scarcely be followed.
 "Soon it developed that it was but a matter of little time until the king snake crushed out the life of the rat tier ,as he again had him in his deadly folds and again gripped him close to the head. The hour being late in the afternoon, MT. Wheeler and companions placed the snakes, still locked in their deadly coils, into box and took them to Castenada's We'll, where they were dumped out and the fight continued. Within an hour the rattler was crushed into an inert mass. The kingsnake, realizing that his foe was dead, pro- eeeded to investigate, and smelled his old enemy over carefully from head to tail. One of the men had removed the rattles from the rattlesnake toward the end of the battle and the stump was still bleeding. As the kingsnake came to the bleeding stump his body writhed and swelled and his head raised and swayed from side to side and then de- scended onto the luckless tail with an angry swish Then without further ceremony he proceeded to swallow his late enemy in the most approved can nibalistic manner. In short time he had one-half of the rattler inside of him and then coiled his body around the portion, and by drawing up the folds forced all but the head of the rattler into himself The rattler s | head was too large to freely enter the mouth, but not to be de- prived of vestige of his old foe the snake moved over to a nearby rock and, pressing the head against the rock, in 2 short time had pressed it past the listended fragments of the mouth. The hard fought battle had been won, and the victor having disposed of the spoil, | and wearily dragged it's bat tered and bleeding frame into nearby push, there to digest the dinner it had 30 hardly won. Four hours had been consumed in the battle and deglutition If the vanquished rattler."