CREATURES OF MYSTERY 
33 
down on the front porch. Soon she observed the mother cat 
playing with something in the grass on the lawn. The cat kept 
advancing in the direction of the house as it played with what¬ 
ever it might prove to be which engaged her attention. Yield¬ 
ing to her curiosity she looked closely. It was a large diamond- 
back crawling slowly toward her, with head slightly reared, 
and with rattles pointing upward at an angle of about forty- 
five degrees. The cat was following the reptile, playing with 
its rattles, slapping them with first one paw and then the other. 
The two soon disappeared under the house, but at that very 
instant the husband returned. Directing his attention to the 
strange carryings-on of these two creatures, the husband 
seized a piece of stove wood from the woodpile which was 
conveniently near. Throwing same at the rattler with force, 
he coiled immediately to make a stand. The cat took no notice 
whatever of the disturbance, but on the contrary sat down by 
the side of the coiled rattler, looking upon him with not the 
slightest show of fear. At the direction of the husband his 
wife had brought him his loaded shotgun. It became necessary 
for him to do some maneuvering in order to shoot the serpent 
without doing injury to his cat, so close did the latter cling to 
its captor. 
Thinking the incident ended, the young man threw the rat¬ 
tler in his truck and drove away to another part of the planta¬ 
tion a mile distant from the scene of the killing. There he 
found a stump of a pine tree about eight feet tall. The thin 
outer shell was of rich pine wood. In the process of decay it 
was left with serrated edges, thus providing convenient sharp 
points on which to hang the carcass. Hours later the cat ap¬ 
peared upon the scene, climbed the stump, and lay down in a 
depression upon the top, as close to the rattler as she could 
get. A darkey working nearby, seeing this, went to investigate 
the queer behavior of the cat. She was driven down more than 
once during the afternoon and frightened away from the spot, 
but on each occasion she would return, climb the stump again 
and lie down by the side of her captor, dead though he was. 
On the following day the two men visited the spot again, find¬ 
ing the cat upon the top of the stump, dead by the side of the 
