53 PIONEER LIFE ; OR, 



as many as thirty rattle-snakes lying on the rock, 

 sunning themselves. They pushed their canoe to the 

 other shore, and when passing the smaller rock, they 

 discovered on the top a pile of rattle-snakes as large 

 as an out-door bake-oven. They lay with their heads 

 sticking up in every direction, hissing at them. Pro- 

 ceeding up the river a short distance, they could see, 

 as they approached the shore, snakes lying where 

 they intended to land. They therefore continued on 

 a mile and a half to a thicket of hemlock, which they 

 knew the snakes would not approach, and accord- 

 ingly went ashore and prepared dinner. About one 

 mile and a half farther they arrived at the second 

 fork of Pine Creek. Here they saw about forty elk 

 drinking in the creek, and as far as they could see 

 they discovered elk in the stream. They estimated 

 that there were nearly two hundred elk at the creek. 

 The next day they pushed up the creek about eleven 

 miles, when they came to the Round Islands, on the 

 shore opposite which was a den of rattlesnakes, 

 about a quarter of a mile back from the creek, in a 

 rocky place. It being in the month of August, when 

 the snakes always come to the water, they saw in a 

 space of twenty rods as many as sixteen rattle-snakes, 

 all about a rod from the water. Not wishing to land 

 in such company, they proceeded up the creek half a 

 mile to a hemlock thicket, where they landed and 

 prepared supper. They then dropped out into the 

 stream, and anchored for the night. But they found 

 troublesome neighbors on the water, as well as on 

 'and. The gnats were so numerous and annoying 





