SNAKES IN THE GRASS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 49, 26 January 1884, Page 2

SNAKES IN THE GRASS.

(American Paper.) If you stand -here aiid peer through the darkness you can see v all. There is tshe waggon of a lone emigrant family, its covers weather- worn and rent to prove that the journey has been weary. ' Ten feet away are the embers of the firfe on. Tyhibh. the evening meal wits cooked. 'Between the waggon and the fife* is" the rude bed of robes and blankets on which' mother and chrldreh are sleeping. On the other side of the vehicle stand the horses 'munching at thorfr, sweet : grass, 1 or listening to the far-off voice of the wolf. That is the back-ground. In the foreground a sentinel sits with his back to tho solitary cottpu wood.^ At \\i&[ right hand runs a Uttle brook — at his left is the boundless prairie o'er which night has. sgread^her mankle. Fortjc 'feet away are wife and children ti listing m his vigilance. Overhead, greywhite clouds, are diving aorosti the starlight heavens, and the moan of the wind has an uneasy, nervous sound. Away on the prarie the wolf gallops from knoll to knoll and snufis the ail, and - the coyote gnaws at the bleached bones of the buffalo and utters his shottyfoavp, cries of hunger. Is there clanger? All day long as (he tired horse pulled the waggon at a slow pace, the emigrant has carefully soanned the eirole about him, but withoue cause for uneasiness. He knows he is m the Indian country, and for the last twenty-four hours his nerves have been braced "to hear their dreaded war-whoop and to catch sight of a band ridfng down upon him. It is'fai'driight as we fiud him. Bis ear has boon as keen as a fox's and his eye has not rested for a -moment. The stakes' are human lives— his life with : the rest. The odds are ten to one against his. "Ah! if we were back m, the old h_ome m Ghjo ! ¥<\n remember the old. fttrm hoitse hidden away among thej cherry ; and ' peajv trees ! There is the highway; 'lined with dusty May weeds. Half a mile below is the quaint little school house where the children learned their A, B, C. Half a mile above is the bridge across the— " The sentinel rouses up and rubs his eyes. It was the creek talking to. him. As ho listened tq its monotonous bubble it suddenly began to converse m plain tongue. For n, moment ho is thrilledjarid alarmed. He looks keenly abbut, : and he listens with bated breath.' There are the same sounds — the wail of the coyote — the munching of ; the horses — the babbling of the brook — now and then half a groajy fvcjin rub of the children sleeping au

uneasy sleep. And now the brook talks ago m : " There was the big brown barn full of sweet-smelling hay — the pasture lot «with its cows — the pond m which the bare-legged children used to wade — the orchard with its burden of fruit. Don't you remember how you used to sit on the stoop at evening time and smoke your pipe and watch the children at play on the grass? How peaceful everything was ! There was a drowsy feeling m tho summer air — the lazy huin_ of the low song of the* good wife as she rocked baby to sleep — why, you sometimes fell asleep and let your pipe drop from " The brook babbled and the man slept. Aye ! tho sentinel who had five lives m his keeping slept and dreamed, and his dreams wandered back to tho old home and heard the familiar sounds. ' Sh ! It was a rustle m the grass ! Turn to the left a little more. There it is? Thirty feet from the sleeping man a rattlesnake rears its head above the grass and looks around. It's eyes gleam like stars. The neck swells, the tongue flashes m and out, and it coils and uncoils itself as if m tierce com- I bat. Now it is advancing — now it' swerves to the right now to the left— now it halts and coils itself to strike. It might creep up and bury its fangs m the flesh of the aleeping man, and it will! It creeps again. It glides .through the grass like a gleam— now to the right— now to the left-r-now straight ahead. 'Ss-s-h!' The serpent halts. Twenty feet more and it could have struck the sleeper, but some movement of his alalarmed it, and it glides away for fifty feet, ag fast as a shadow travels. Now look beyond the snake ! It is a second serpent worming its way over the ground to surround the sleeper with peril? Is it a wolf or panther creep- ■ ing forward to make a victim? Now yott can see more clearly. The is the scalp lock and feathers— -the dark face, the-gleaming eyes— the shut teeth and bronzed throat of a Blaokfoot warrior. A courier from one branch of his tribe to anothei ; he has discovered the encampment, ciroleil round it twice,;and is now creeping upoa the man, who sleeps instead of watches. . How , softly he moves ! A panther stealing upon a listening doe would not .exercise more caro. Almost inch by inch, and yet he is sloWiy*approachTng7 He was a hundred feet away. NoV he is ninety— -eighty— seventy— sixty ? He can see a dark mass at the foot ot a tree, and he knows that: the sentinel must be asleep or he would not be m that position. See the 'rattlesnake? It has faced about. If it were daylight you could see a fiercer gleam m its eye— a tightening of the cords and muscles— a fiercer flash of the red tongue. A straight line of sixty feet drawn from the Indian to the tree would pass over the snake. "Now the warrior creeps forward agaim— not a weed breaking, — -not a rustle to prove his presence." Two feet— four-T-six! See the snake! it's head is thrown back — its ( eyes shoot spark's— there goes the deadly z-z-z-zofhis rattle. The head of. the. Indian is not . three feet away as he hears the ominous sounds. He draws back, but theVe, > a dart, a flash, anj.l something strikes him' full m tfte face and is not .shaken offimtilhe springs to his feet with a cry heard for half a mile around and rushes away m the darknes. ; • What was it? The sentinel is wide' awake and upon -his feet* Wife and andchildien have been startled -from, slumber to grow whitefaoed and trembling. Even the horses have raised their heads and are peering into the night. There was-- : a single cry-- the wild set earn of a human being suddenly tei*fied. 'It was nothing — nothing but the howl of a wolf ! whispers the sentinel, as he walks over to comfort his wife and children; and by-and-by all is quiet/ atvd ; peaceful as * before. ; "T^he night ajrows apace—the stars fade'daylight breaks. As the sun comes up the waggon moves on its way and thebrook and'the. canip and the cottonwood are left behind. 4 Yes, ie was the howl of some wolf prowling about, 5 whisper* the emigrant to himsielf as he walks beside his waggon and cautiously scan* the prarie. Three hundred feet to thft left is coiled a snake, which darts its venomous tongue at the rolling waggon. Haifa muVbeyond) lies the dead body of the Blackfoot— swollen, distorted— a horrible sight under the light of the :■ morning sun. Overhead circle three, or four yultures of the prairie, and creeping through tho grass came; the lauk, h ungry wol vss ; to the feast. The wife laughs, the children frolic, th. jhusband regains his jight heart. Nigh* •wrote the record of the serpents m *Ke grass, ,and he will never read it, .