94 THE PLAINS. 



the assault of the most powerful c grizzly.' This is the 

 skunk a beautiful little animal, with body about as large 

 as a common house cat. It is covered with long black 

 and white hair. Its tail is disproportionately long and 

 bushy, and, when the animal is roused, it is erected as a 

 banner of defiance. Its legs are very short, and its feet 

 formed for burrowing. A man can easily outrun it ; it 

 cannot climb, and it would fall an easy prey to the larger 

 carnivora, but that Nature has supplied it with a 

 weapon of offence and defence in a fetid discharge most 

 horribly obnoxious to everything except panthers and 

 Indians. 



The skunk is carnivorous, and his mouth, shaped like 

 that of a racoon, is furnished with a beautiful set of sharp 

 white teeth. He is nocturnal in his habits, and very 

 fearless, penetrating in search of food into camps and 

 tents while the inmates are asleep. In such cases he is 

 greatly to be feared, for, so far from keeping away from 

 selecting men, he will, if he finds nothing more to his 

 taste, deliberately commence devouring the hand, face, 

 or any uncovered part of the sleeper. The bite in itself 

 would be of but little account ; but, in all the country 

 between the Republican River and the Indian Territory, 

 it is almost invariably followed up by that most horrible 

 of all horrors, hydrophobia. 



I have never had opportunity nor the technical know- 

 ledge necessary for a careful investigation ; but I am 

 convinced that the terrible disease is the natural result to 

 man of the bite of the skunk (in the territory designated) ; 

 and that, while inflicting it on the person bitten, it does 

 not follow that the skunk is himself afflicted with the 

 malady. 



I judge this to be the case, firstly, from the fact that 

 skunks are very numerous in the valleys of the Arkansas 

 and its tributaries, whilst the number of men bitten each 

 year with fatal result is so great and so widely separated 

 both in location and time as to indicate an epidemic 



