Long Valley advocate. (Lardo, Idaho) 1904-1907, 1907-04-18

full and unmistakable sound of warn
ing | say a dozen, but there must
have been hundreds of the deadly rep
tiles in that old shaft.
"As / went down among the rafting,
CHASTITY mass big fellow struck from
his position on the timber and fas-
tened his fang in my coat sleeve.
caught him quickly by the back of
the head, tore him off and dropped
him down the pit. / heard him strike
bottom and / knew l was not far
above it by the promptness with which
the sound came back. Two or three
other rattlers had struck in a similar
manner and had fallen short of their
mark and gone down.
"By this time the sound of the rat
Ting had increased a hundredfold, the
falling snakes having aroused count
less numbers of their fellows at the
bottom of the shaft. The bucket now
stopped abruptly l was suspended
there 800 feet below the surface and
about Is feet only from the snake-in-
habited bottom of the mine. Such
rafting no one ever heard before, and
the stencil was sitting. l was sick
and faint and the prospect of being
lowered help1essfy into the very midst
of this den of snakes was something
awful
II shook the rope. in desperation.
shouted and kept shouting and shak-
ing more and more frantically. L felt
as ii | were frozen, so cold had my
whole body become. 1t seemed as IL
nothing could save me from shooting
down that last paltry Is feet to a
death from which it would be abso-
lutely impossible to escape.
AT last the bucket began to ascend
SLOWLY, slowly. 1t was maddening!
L felt as if it would reverse and go
down at any moment lower than ever.
l crOuched in the bucket and Strug-
gled with all my power of will to en-
deavor to make the men hoist faster.
The slowness with which the thing
went up almost drove me crazy. The
ordeal 1 had already undergone was
now repeated. l was continually be-
ing struck at by the snakes left on
the timbers. l was hit time after time
so much so indeed that my duck
coat was wet in many places with the
poison of the reptiles.
"One monster about four feet long
finally got into the bucket with me-
He must have reached out too far
when striking and fallen in. l stamp
ed my foot upon it and ground it down
and held it there; / put my weight
upon it and got him just behind the
head where he could not move to
strike. His body writhed about my
ankles; his skin slipped on his body
beneath my weight. 1t was a sicken-
Ing sensation to feel that awful, Slip
perry thing under my heel
Il arrived in the belt of bats again
and such mess 1 don't think any
man ever got into before The cratic
winged creatures beat about met
seemed with great fury. They struck
ne repeatedly on the face and once !
more put out the candle. Their mousse |
Ike squeaks and the rattle of the |
snake beneath my feet nearly scared |
ne to death. l could not fight such a
loud of foes; it was all l could do tn
protect myself from their flaming
Wings and blind hurting against nv
ace.
AT last l could see daylight and
ould make myself heard. | shouted
the men to hoist quickly. The two
miners did their best and soon had
he at the top or within a few feet of
= They now discovered and | also
aw four large rattlesnakes hanging
the edge of the leather tub. Thew
ad struck at me and had got their
In h.