i9 2 A Trip on the Prairie. 



The horned frog is not a frog at all, but a lizard, 

 a queer, stumpy little fellow with sp'v* r^ all over the 

 top of its head and back, and given to moving in the 

 most leisurely manner imaginable. Nothing will make it 

 hurry. If taken home it becomes a very tame and quaint 

 but also very uninteresting little pet. 



Rattlesnakes are only too plentiful everywhere ; along 

 the river bottoms, in the broken, hilly ground, and on 

 the prairies and the great desert wastes alike. Every 

 cow-boy kills dozens each season. To a man wearing 

 top-boots there is little or no danger while he is merely 

 walking about, for the fangs cannot get through the 

 leather, and the snake does not strike as high as the 

 knee. Indeed the rattlesnake is not nearly as danger- 

 ous as are most poisonous serpents, for it always gives 

 fair warning before striking, and is both sluggish and 

 timid. If it can it will get out of the way, and only 

 coils up in its attitude of defence when it believes that 

 it is actually menaced. It is, of course, however, both 

 a dangerous and a disagreeable neighbor, and one of 

 its annoying traits is the fondness it displays for crawl- 

 ing into a hut or taking refuge among the blankets 

 left out on the ground. Except in such cases men 

 are rarely in danger from it, unless they happen to 

 be stooping over, as was the case with one of my cow- 

 boys who had leaned over to pick up a log, and was 

 almost bitten by a snake which was underneath it ; or 

 unless the snake is encountered while stalking an animal. 

 Once I was creeping up to an antelope under cover of some 

 very low sage-brush so low that I had to lie flat on my 



