200 
CREATURES OF MYSTERY 
to betray his position. By that time the voices of the pursuing 
Yankee soldiers could be heard drawing near. It was a critical 
moment, in which death menaced the fugitives from two direc¬ 
tions. Both knew all too well the penalty for spying, so the 
first to enter the log, concluding that he might as well die from 
the bite of a rattlesnake as face a firing squad, crawled on 
until his face literally touched the rattler’s coiled body and 
the whirring rattles fanned the tip of his nose. 
As the writer knew this venerable old gentleman when he 
was eighty years of age, he must have been a giant in his 
younger days, and probably not noted for piety or for giving 
much thought to the hereafter. According to his own admis¬ 
sion, his thoughts just then turned to his mother, friends back 
home, and existence beyond the grave. Yielding to such im¬ 
pulses for the first time in his life, he called upon his Supreme 
Commander, making an irrevocable vow that if he would save 
him from the menace of that rattler “an’ them dern Yankees” 
he would serve Him to the end of his days. 
He lay perfectly still and would have held his breath had 
such physical feat been possible, in order that the rattler might 
become calm. The latter had about ceased whirring his rattles. 
Just then the Yankees reached the log and heard the gentle 
sound of the rattles. Using the butt of his rifle, one of them 
pounded on the log directly over the snake within. The 
response such procedure provoked was a more violent whir¬ 
ring than ever, ascending the scale to a higher pitch. As they 
listened for some moments, considering the possibility of the 
two Confederate refugees sharing the log with the infuriated 
diamond-back, one of them remarked: 
“No man more esteems the Southern soldier for his valor 
than I do, but there’s not a man south of the Mason-Dixon 
line who has the courage to stay in a log with an angry rattle¬ 
snake; come on, let’s get out of here.” 
Darkness soon closed in over the scene of this near tragedy, 
and the two cautiously crawled out of the log, and when the 
sun arose the next morning they were safely back within the 
Confederate lines, with an almost unbelievable experience to 
relate to their comrades. 
