80 EARLY DAY STORIES 



of our best authors are frequently very inaccurate as to de- 

 tails, and therefore their teachings are to a greater or less 

 extent erroneous. As a case in point the following in- 

 stances will be given, taken from Francis Parkman's "Cal- 

 ifornia and Oregon Trail," page 105: "As we emerged 

 from the trees a rattlesnake, as large as a man's arm, and 

 more than four feet long, lay coiled on a rock, fiercely ratt- 

 ling and hissing at us ; a gray hare, double the size of those 

 of New England, leaped up from the tall ferns ; curlew were 

 screaming over our heads, and a whole host of little prairie 

 dogs sat yelping at us at the mouths of their burrows on 

 the dry plain beyond. Suddenly an antelope leaped up from 

 the wild sage bushes, gazed eagerly at us, and then, erect- 

 ing his white tail, stretched away like a greyhound." The 

 foregoing sentences are elegantly written and are very in- 

 teresting and instructive reading, but they convey informa- 

 tion that will be very surprising to an old frontiersman who 

 has read little or nothing of these matters, but whose stock 

 of information comes only from personal experiences. Who 

 ever heard a rattlesnake hiss? I have killed hundreds of 

 them, and have talked with very many persons who hav^ 

 seen and killed many of these reptiles, but I have never 

 heard of such a thing as a hissing rattlesnake except from 

 reading books. The Rocky Mountain rattlesnakes are not 

 noted for their great size — in fact they are rather under- 

 sized, therefore this one must have been a monster if the 

 measurements are correctly stated. Who ever saw or heard 

 of tall ferns in the foot-hills of the Laramie mountains, 

 where these things occurred? Ferns grow only in a com- 

 paratively damp soil, and here it was very dry — in fact, al- 

 most a desert. Small ferns do grow higher up in the Lara- 

 mie mountains where there is more moisture, but even then 

 they are not tall enough to hide a hare. It would surprise 

 an old plainsman to see an antelope leap out from the wild 

 sage bushes, or any kind of bushes, for antelope do not 



