42 . SNAKES. 
CHAPTER III. 
GAINES’ CREEK TO FORT WASHITA. 
Horse bitten by a snake —Prairie flowers.—Oats met with.—White men married 
to squaws—Law upon the subject—Fossils found—Ooal abu t.—Soil, 
grants met 
Boggy —Choctaw swamp.—Wild cattle—Train stopped Start for the fort.— 
Flies troublesome.—Cross the Blue.—Arrive at Washita. 
June lithWe found this morning, that the best horse 
we had—a noble sorrel—had been struck by a snake in the 
night, and could go no farther. The muscles of his throat 
and fore-quarters, were so swollen that he could not raise his 
head from the ground, so, reluctantly, we left him in charge 
of a Choctaw, living in the vicinity, with directions to bring 
him in to Fort Washita when he recovered. The doctor bled 
him very freely in the mouth, and we made a muslin cover to 
screen him from the flies, and so left him to his fate. 
Instances of this kind are very frequent in this section of 
eountry. The reptile is a small mottled snake, called Ground 
Rattlesnake, This is a misnomer, as it has no rattles, and 
strikes without warning. It is a species of the Copperhead, 
its bite very venomous, and generally attended with fatal 
results. . 
At ten a. M., (the water having subsided to a fordable 
depth,) we crossed Gaines’ Creek, and passing through several 
