Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1876 — A Rattlesnake Hunt—Singular Occnpation. [ARTICLE]

A Rattlesnake Hunt—Singular Occnpation.

The party was to start from the cabin of Jake Smith, whose home is four miles from Snipe Creek, on the spur of Blue Ridge that juts out from the northwest boundary of Lehigh County. Three miles from his place is a barren tract known as Rattlesnake Ledge. Smith had three friends, Henry Larkins, Budd Hemple, and Hiram Endv, of whom he la the acknowledged leader. He is a tall, rawboned six-footer, with a face covered with sbort black whiskers. The three others rough woodsmen, yet full of fun and food or adventure. They seemed to be elated at having a stranger in the party. “ Just come along," said Smith; “ you won't be getting into any harm. Put on a heavy pair of boots, and keep your eyes •open and your wits about you." The party started early yesterday. The ledge reached, pipes were smoked until sun-up. I'll never forget my first hack at a snake in these parts," said Smith; "it was just across yonder, about a hundred yards. It was a red-hot day in August. I went across, and Just ahead of me I saw a six-footer stretched out asleep. I went for him, but missed my mark, and in a second the rattle jangled. He made a spring, and grabbed me by the arm and held fast. Before I could think of what I was doing, this dog here grabbed the .snake, and shook the life out of It. They laid me out, and Bill Henry, dead two years now, put his mouth to my bare arm and drew every bit of the poison out of it. They tied me up, put on a leaf or two, and I never felt it afterward.” > Smith went away, and after he had been gone a half-hour he called us from the rocks, and we went to him. He stood smiling, and exclaimed, "Here’s an early bird out for an airing.” On the rock, and pinned to it by a forked stick, writhed a reptile about four feet in length. Jake told Eddy to hold the prong down. Taking out a small vial from a vest pocket he saturated a bit of black wadding with the liquor it contained. He placed the wadding on a stick, and then put it into the serpent's mouth. It operated like magic. The snake's body dropped flat on the rock. ~ ■ ——-- "That’ll do," said Jake. “Take the prong off. He's dosed like a charm." Jake then held the snake by the tail, and said that the stuff would keep it unconscious for ten minutes. The reptile had six fully developed rattles. These were cut off. The ten minutes had scarcely elapsed before the snake revived. His throat commenced swelling, his eyes protruded, and he shook his tail, but the rattles were gone. He tried to shake again, and then sank his fangs deep into his body again and again, frothed at the mouth and died apparently in agony. " I just did that to let you know how mad a rattler gets when he is clipped," said Jake. "You see how blue the inside of his mouth is ? Well, that’s the way they- all get. That pronged tongue of his is not dangerous. Behind that long tooth is a small bag that I will show you after a while. It is a kind of a sack about half as big as a pea. In that is the poison. When a rattler gets mad, and just before he strikes, he’ll give his teeth a bath of poison and then drive in the fangs. The teeth are hollow on the ends, and no matter If they go through a man's clothes, the poison won’t wipe off, but it will drop when the teeth touch blood.” The sun was very hot and the barren -ledge, exposed to the full rays, was getting scorching. Each man was provided with a stout hickory stick, with a prong -at the lower end. Each put on his feet - rubber bottoms made out of castoff shoes, in order to get over the rocks without making a noise, each took a different direction, with the understanding that they should meet at the spring two miles over the hill, at noon.

“ You come with me,” said Jake, whistling for the dog, and the hunters separated. They were provided with shrill whistles, and it was specially understood that they should at no time be separated among the rocks at a distance beyond hearing, so that whenever one might want help die other • could come to Lis assistance without losing , much time. “ We generally find ’em laying stretched on the rocks, they’re naturally lazy, and they take to the sun like ducks to water. They don’t do much but sleep. On these hot rocks they become full of poison. :Look there at that dog! will you?” “Maj.” stood ou a ledge of yellow rock about fifty yards from where we were. His body was silent as a statue, and his tail wagged with the regularity of a pendulum. We approached silently, and when we were within five feet of the rock ithe dog left his post and got behind his master. Jake pointed ahead, and there lay a rattlesnake seven feet in length . sleeping in the sun. It lay stretched out. The hunter walked up carefully, placed the pole in position, Sind in a twinkling it descended upon the neck of the reptile, ! making it a prisoner. It took all the strength of that brawny man at first to' keep the snake fast upon the rock. Rattlesnakes do not curl as other snakes do. When pitmed doWn they simply lash the ground or the rock with their bodies. “Stand back,” said Jake, “let him lam -that stone until he gets tired.” The homy chain on the snake's tail rattled, but the prong was too small for him to slip his head or body through. It pinched just enough to madden him. In three minutes he seemed fagged out, when Jake was enabled to dose him and lay him out. The body was beautiful In gold, dark brown and'black. The belly had Oisli white, with black stripes. On the there were black spots. Jake took out the poisan sack, which looked very much like a water blister on human flesh. “That stuff in tfite jveiiis of twenty men would kill every one of ’em,” said* Jake. “Some people would say this fellow was eleven years old, according to his tattles. I don’t believe it. I believe these snakes get ’em more than once a year when they ■ are young. When they are old it may be different. This skin ain’t worth much, but are’ll take it along anyway."

Suddenly there was heard a shrill whistle «tt one of the men about 200 yards overtime rocks. The dog pitched headforemost in his effort to get away in a hurry. Jake caught his breath, and said: •“Come on, but be careful.” A thrilling sight was Endy, in a bath of perspiration, holding down a snake that seemed as large again so the one we had just cap. tured. The dew was called away. “I want this fellow alive,” said Endy ; “and, Jake, take hold of this until I run the big hickory and get that box,” Ha a short time Endy returned with a rtMaj»-bax, lined with leather. The lid was a rude affair, made of heavy wire. He set the box down, and then took hold .of the prong. The snake was then made Uo swallow a wadding ball, and when it wm under its influence it was easily thrown into the box, and the lid fastened with staples. The snake measured nine feet in start was tuple, and in about jan hour and ft half five snakes

were killed. All of the parly were on time at the appointed place of meeting. Nineteen snakes had been captured. Jake was asked what he had in that vial. " That’s the best thing ip the world to put any man or lieast to sleep you ever heard of. We get it by stewing up Indian turnip, bazel nut, dock and one or two other things that the women folks gather on the hills. Old Granny Lipparn first gave it to tlie people in these parts, There was a fine horse got his leg broke for Gen. Bridge, and they had an idea they could set it if the horse could be put to sleep and out of pain. Old Granny stewed ’em up some, and they give it to the horse, and it put him to sleep. We tried the stuff on dogs, goats, sheep, and on fish, and toward the last we got it on the snakes, and it works like a charm. I wouldn’t like to give it to a human being for fear it might put him so sound to sleep that he'd never get over it. The men cut off the heads of tlie reptiles, extracted tlie poison sacks, and put them in one box. In reply to a question as to what tlie jKiison was good for, one said; "In the first place it is not dangerous if you keep it away from your blood. The women folks use it very sparingly, though. Sometimes they mix it with camphor to smell of for headache. A little, boiled with dock leaves and wild laurel, is a good wash for rheumatism. Stiff joints arc limbered up pretty well when a sac is thrown into warm water with salt and a little mustard. The skins dried are said to cure headache, earache, rheumatism, wildfire or ringworm, if worn around the arms.” Last year these four men killed 327 snakes in three months, and they intend to exceed that number this year. “ These snakes we got here,” said findy, "are the worst kind of rattlers. They live on mice and birds. There is no such thing in my mind as charming a bird. My opinion is that the snake comes on to the bird so suddenly that it gets scared to death. I don’t believe half the snake stories I hear nowadays. But this I can give as a fact; Last summer ’Squire Ettcr’s boy commenced to behave strange. He’d go off into the woods and stay all day, and when he got back he’d have very little to say. One day that boy was followed. He sat down on a log, and ten minutes after he got there a big rattlesnake crawled up oh a stone about twelve feet from where the boy sat. The young fellow watched the snake, and never took his eyes off him. We got tired watching that sort of thing and we walked up slowly and killed the reptile. The boy cried. We led him back home. He got a whipping, and Since then he keeps away from snakes. ( lle was not charmed; he was only foolish enough to go—that's all. Rattlesnakes never hurt anybody unless they are first molested. They live to be fifteen years old anyhow, although I have seen twenty-eight rattles on one tail.—Jacksonville (Pa.) Cor. N. Y. Sun.