AN ESCAPE FROM RATTLESNAKES. 279 



trickled down to his toes, showed that the friction was con- 

 siderable. As he passed me, I h^eard him exclaim, ' thank 

 God,' and the next instant he plunged into the cold water at 

 the base of the falls. What there was to be thankful for in 

 such a descent over the rocks, I could not at the tune com- 

 prehend, as the chances were in favor of a broken back, or 

 neck, or some other consummation equally out of the range 

 of gratitude, in an ordinary way. He came up out of the 

 water blowing and snorting like a porpoise with a cold in 

 his head, and waded to the shore. ' Come down,' he 

 shouted, which I did, not quite so far or fast as he did, but 

 fast enough to make an involuntary plunge, head foremost, 

 into the pool at the bottom. The occasion of his catastro- 

 phe was this : he had ascended so near the table rock, 

 that his hands were upon it, and was lifting himself up, 

 when, as his eyes came above the surface, the edge upon 

 which his hands with most of his weight rested, gave way, 

 and he started for the basin below. But he had a view of 

 what satisfied him that to this accident he owed his life, and 

 it was a sense of gratitude for bis escape, that prompted 

 the exclamation I heard as he went bumping past me. 

 Coiled on the rock above, and within reach of his face, were 

 several large rattlesnakes, and he always insisted that one 

 made a spring at him, as his hands gave way, and he put 

 out for the basin into which he plunged. He was a good 

 deal bruised, but his escape from the poisonous reptiles 

 reconciled him to that." 



