The Wrangell sentinel., 1935-04-19
RATTLESNAKES AND
 SANDHILLS
By Otis il. Speer

] sad mistake) the number of them that my buddy and I put an end to was of sizable proportions.
 My buddy was my horse Fly, !" and no finer or more wise little horse ever cropped grama grass. am not procrastinating when I say that his wisdom and quick action saved my life a number of times. Several times he absolutely refused to go into places of almost certain death, that I would have waded blindly into.
 Fly was a one-man horse and woe unto the stranger who even attempted to ride him. I've seen him go into the air-bucking and come down completely turne d around, heading the other way. I've seen him perform this stunt and leave his rider standing off to one side looking like he had lost some- thing, and I've seen him send his rider spinning like a cartwheel.
 Riding a Comet
 When l first secured Fly, he was as wild as an antelope and fully as hard to ride Many times even after l had him fairly well broken in, he would develop a playful at titude and seem to take pride in showing me just what he could do and sometimes he showed me too. It sometimes depended on which one of us got started first when he got going good-it was somewhat like riding the tail end of a comet.
 However, Fly loved to be petted and he was a regular pig after oats. We soon became friends, then buddies, that stuck through thick and thin.
 No rattler was ever swift enough to reach Fly with his dead ly fangs. No hound dog could find more rattlers than he could. Many time while jogging along or lop- ing across some mesa l have seen him leap aside so quickly that my head would almost be jerked loose from my shoulders, and l always knew what it was. 1 have often thought, how easily less experi- enced rider might have been left sitting alongside that rattler. It would have been just too bad.
 Sandhills and Bad Lands
 Far up the Big Dry river in the region that lies to the east of the Montana Badlands, is long stretch of rolling sandhills that intersect h t strange region commonly termed "Hells Half Acre." and right well are they named. Those sand dunes are sometimes referred to as jumping sandhills because they are composed of fine dry white quicksands that blow and drift like so much dry snow. They are continually changing shape. Down along the river where few cottonwood trees occasionally grow. Pve seen trees with only a few feet of their top sticking out of sand piles. To try to walk over those sandhills is not unlike walk ing in deep snow.
 Snake Heaven
 Up near the western end of these oakland brakes, where the sandhills intersect is a long almost invisible pass.
 One long hot day in June, we were headed for this pass-coming in from the southwest, we-Fly and I, were skirting the sand dunes that lay on our left. The sun was sizzling hot. The heat waves sim- mered and danced out over the un- even terrain and bleaching sands. It was a great place for horned toads and rattlers, vertitable seventh heaven for them. The only vegetation was a scattering of scrubby sage brush and punches of sand grass.
 Step-SOns of Satan
 Somewhat lost in dreamy medita tions, I was letting Fly pick his own route, as he slowly logged along like a flash he gave a tremendous leap aside, lung ing ahead. The force and speed of that leap jerked my head up and back as though some moose had been thrown over my head and sud denly been brought up solid. Tn