^7 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



VOL. 28 



JULY, 1922 



NO. 343 



RATTLE SNAKES 



By Will C. Barnes 



ANY years ago in Central Arizona a small body of Again my inquisitive "why?" 

 United States Cavalry was camping for the night "Oh, it scratches their belly, I reckon," answered the 



M 



at a desert water hole. With the troopers was a pack 

 train of about forty mules manned by the usual force of 

 civilian packers. 



After supper each man selected a spot on which to 

 lay his blankets for the night for in that climate tents 

 were an unknown quantity. 



The Chief Packer, an old timer in the Southwest went 

 to considerable trouble to make himself as comfortable 

 as he could and 

 after his bed 

 was all made 

 he went to his 

 saddle, a regu- 

 lar cowboy af- 

 fair with huge 

 tapaderos, and 

 took from it a 

 hair rope tied 

 to his saddle 

 horn, in a close 

 coil. 



This rope 

 was about thir- 

 ty feet long 

 and of the us- 

 ual type of hair 

 rojie made bv 

 the cowboys of 

 those days 

 either from 

 horse or cow- 

 tails as was 

 most conven- 

 ient. 



This hair 

 rope he care- 

 fully laid on 

 the ground 

 clear around his 

 part. 



I was a "stranger in a strange land" in those days, a 

 tenderfoot of the first water therefore privileged to ask 

 of the Chief Packer "why" as 1 pointed to this hair rope 

 stretched about his bed. 



"To keep out rattlers" was his prompt reply, "no rat- 

 tler's going to cross a hair rope under any circumstances." 



Fliotograph by Will C. Barnes. 



THE FRONTIERSMAN'S BED PROTECTED (?) FROM THE RATTLER'S 



FRIENDLY VISITS 



The hair rope is the usual cowboy rope of alternate strands of black and white horse hair, 

 and the general belief has always been that the rattler will not, for some peculiar reason 

 of his own, cross it. 



lied and about a foot from it at every 



"Oh, 



man as he stepped inside the chamied circle and began 

 his simple preparations for the night's rest. 



Evidently my face showed either doubts as to the effi- 

 cacy of the rope or desire to learn more about the anti- 

 snake fence he had erected about his desert bed room. 



"Never heard of that trick ?" he continued. I never 

 had. "Well, Sonny, you knock around on the frontier 

 a few years and you're likely to see it done a good many 



times." 



Thirty - five 

 years of fron- 

 tier life leading 

 me all the way 

 from the Mex- 

 ican border to 

 the Canadian 

 line, most of it 

 spent in the 

 "open" camp- 

 i n g wherever 

 night overtook 

 m e , justified 

 the prediction 

 of my packer 

 friend for I 

 have seen the 

 a 1 1 encircling 

 hair rope used 

 by people of 

 every kind, ar- 

 my o f f i c e rs, 

 p ro sp ec to rs , 

 sheep herders, 

 cowboys, hunt- 

 ers and tender- 

 feet of every 

 grade. Often I 

 myself have 

 surrounded my camp bed with the snake defying contri- 

 vance. 



Yet not for many years did it occur to nie either to 

 question tiie value of the protection aflforded by the hair 

 rope or ask the users of it if they really knew it would 

 perform its duties when the opportunity came and a real 

 live rattler appeared at the barrier. 



Though 1 made it my business to ask the pertinent 



