CREATURES OF MYSTERY 
137 
knowledge on any subject that may prove of interest to you, 
then go to someone who has worked at that particular task all 
of his life, and listen attentively and respectfully while he in¬ 
structs you concerning it.” 
At the time, the above sounded like good philosophy, and 
during all the intervening years we have had no occasion to 
change our mind in any particular regarding the merits of it. 
We had gone to the great authorities and had learned nothing. 
Very naturally we concluded that we would be governed by the 
advice of this old teacher and go to those who had daily en¬ 
countered the problems which had vexed us so long. 
At first we could scarcely subdue our pride and go boldly to 
men who had never seen the inside of a high school building 
and ask of them that we be instructed concerning great mys¬ 
teries. What! Walk boldly past instructors in our great col¬ 
leges and ask knowledge of men utterly lacking in high school 
or college training? It didn’t seem to make sense. Yet, after 
all, perhaps it did. These college students, college professors, 
and the great doctors of laws had not, for any great length of 
time, risked their shanks down in the hardwood hummocks 
and infested swamplands to the deadly fangs of the diamond- 
backs. Therefore, how could they possibly know? True, they 
might make occasional visits down to the zoo, or even en¬ 
counter one in the wild, but the rattler is slow to yield up all 
his secrets. In a state of captivity one views only the physical 
form of the serpent. The real serpent is no longer there. One 
would never learn .the truth about the American Indian view¬ 
ing and observing him in the stockade. The average person 
living for a period of sixty or seventy years where rattlers are 
plentiful would not, at the best, make more than two or three 
worthwhile observations—most men very likely would never 
happen upon anything worth noting. It is only by putting to¬ 
gether all the observations of a hundred lay observers that a 
true and detailed picture of the diamond-back can be con¬ 
structed. It has been to such task that we have so faithfully 
devoted ourselves, to the end that the truth concerning this 
interesting reptile may finally be known. 
For many years we literally groped in darkness, getting no 
