236 THE GREAT FATHER dt SNAKES' WAYS 



the wound is just above the heel ; but, strange to say, it 

 never affects the wild hog, who can even eat rattle-snakes 

 without suffering. 



Luckily, certain remedies are known to the Indians 

 for the bite of one of the deadliest of all serpents, the 

 rattle-snake, and the surest of these is a small kind 

 of plantain which, when rubbed on the wound and 

 swallowed, gradually destroys the poison in the blood. 

 Now-a-days, too, people are given strong doses of whisky 

 or ammonia, which act in the same way, and they are kept 

 walking up and down for manj- hours. If they are once 

 allowed to fall asleep they never wake again. Still, what- 

 ever remedy may be used, when the time of year comes 

 round in which the man was bitten, he will, we are told, 

 feel some return of the symptoms to the end of his life. 



A traveller in North America, in the middle of the last 

 century, says that in the neighbourhood of the Fox Kiver 

 he found an immense number of rattle-snakes hiding in 

 the grass which covered a sort of swamp. One of these 

 snakes had been captured by an Indian, who managed to 

 tame it, and carried it about with him everywhere in a 

 box, calling it his ' Great Father.' The man and the snake 

 had wandered about together for many summers, when 

 they were met by a French trader, who found the 

 Indian making ready to start for his winter hunting- 

 grounds. He and the Indian soon became friends, and 

 one day the Frenchman was much surprised to see the 

 Eedskin put the box containing his Great Father on the 

 ground, and, pushing back the lid, tell the snake, as he 

 did so, that he was to meet him at that very place the 

 following May. The Frenchman laughed when he heard 

 the Indian's words, and said that as this was only October 

 he hardly thought it likely that the Great Father would 

 remember so long. However, the Indian was so certain 

 of the snake's affection that he offered to pay the French- 

 man two gallons of rum should the Great Father not turn 

 up at the time appointed. 



