Dec. s, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
889 
with a can of fry, hunting for spring brooks to 
dump them into, but you never pay any attention 
to killing off the water snakes. They will empty 
a stream of trout faster than you can pour them 
• >> 
in. 
; 
The suggestion met popular approval, so the 
entire company started out, armed with a pole, 
a bit of snare wire and a target rifle. 
Where the Little Beaverkill flows under the 
Kingston turnpike there is a bridge perhaps fif¬ 
teen feet high, and its abutments are partially 
of a log-crib construction. On almost any sunny 
day one can stand at either end of the bridge 
and look down upon many water snakes, coiled 
and scalloped along the weather-beaten timbers. 
Here the party stopped and one of them, reach¬ 
ing from the breast rail, slid the snare over the 
head of the largest reptile. It wiggled slightly, 
but showed no great objection to having the 
wire worked gently back under his belly, until 
a third of his length was through the loop. A 
quick upward swing of the pole, and the snake 
was a frantically writhing knot, suspended high 
in the air. Letting him down on the road, a 
sharp rap or two with 
a stick finished him, but 
what a tangle of wire 
and snake it was! An 
over-spun reel could not 
have snarled a trout 
line so hopelessly as this 
repulsive-looking water- 
devil had snarled that 
soft copper wire in his 
brief aerial flight. It 
took fully ten minutes 
of poking with a sharp¬ 
ened stick to get him 
untangled and out of 
the loop. 
The same experiment 
was tried upon four 
others with the same 
results. Then the gun, 
which had been kept 
quiet for fear of scar¬ 
ing the game into hid¬ 
ing, was used, and a 
head neatly severed. To 
the surprise of all the 
party, no alarm was 
shown by the rest of 
the reptiles, and their 
destruction continued 
until fourteen had been 
killed. After that the 
water-snaking was not 
very good around the bridge for some time. 
“We have got our hand in, now,” said Billy, 
“and we might as well work along up the creek 
and see if there are any more sunning on the 
shingle.” 
“I hate a water snake worse than I do a rat¬ 
tler,” Robert commented, “but I can’t help hav¬ 
ing a sort of fellow feeling for them just now 
if they are trying to get warm. Maybe it would 
raise my temperature if somebody whipped me 
with a snake, like Pete Sunders did his mule.” 
“Tell us about Pete Sunders and his mule,” 
Jim demanded. 
“Pete was one of the Virginia mountain char¬ 
acters that used to live near us on the Green- 
briar,” Robert explained. “Rattlers were thick 
around there and Pete was afraid they’d bite his 
mule, so he set out to make the critter shy of 
them. Another boy and I found an old whopper 
coiled up in the road one day and we killed it 
and were dragging it along on a string by Pete’s 
shanty. He saw it and asked us to give it to 
him, and then we went along to see what he 
was going to do with it. He poked it up against 
the mule’s nose, but the critter wouldn’t pay any 
attention to it. After Pete had fussed around 
quite a while that way, he got mad and grabbed 
hold of the snake and thrashed the mule all 
around the yard with it.” 
“Well,” said Billy, “we will whip you with 
the first snake we get.” 
“All right,” Robert replied, “but I hope you 
will warm the snake first.” 
The party wandered along up the creek with 
Jim and the rifle in the lead. They found a few 
of the reptiles and dispatched them, hitting one 
small head that just showed above the water, 
while its owner swam along underneath. 
“I tell you what it is,” said Jim, slightly elated 
at the shot; “there are a good many larger 
marks to shoot at than a little snake’s head.” 
THE CREEK. 
This observation started a line of argument 
which precipitated a session of target practice, 
and several envelopes and bits of note paper 
were severely punctured at an estimated range 
of a hundred feet. Then the procession again 
took up its march, with Robert on the firing line. 
For some time they poked through alder brush 
and climbed over boulders without seeing any 
game. At length a snake slid from under a 
tuft of grass, and wriggling hurriedly toward 
the creek, passed close in front of Robert’s feet. 
He forgot the gun entirely and relied upon his 
native method of killing, which is to jump for 
the reptile’s head with his feet bunched like a 
deer. A clump of willow sprouts spoiled his 
aim and he landed short. The snake slipped 
into the shallow edge of the water and Robert 
followed, stamping and splashing, for it is a sin 
with him to let such a creature escape. He soon 
crushed his prey against the gravelly bottom, 
but of course came out with his feet soaking 
wet. 
“Well, there!” he exclaimed, “I guess there’s 
a good many things would help my cold as much 
as wearing wet shoes.” 
“Why didn’t you shoot?” Jim asked. 
“Never thought I had it at all,” he replied, 
looking at the little rifle he was holding firmly 
in his hand. “Mother was right; mother was 
right,” he muttered, as he watched the water 
squirt out around his shoe laces. 
“Of course she is right,” Billy put in, “but 
what particular rightness are you talking about 
now ?” 
“When she was arguing with me about the 
flannel shirts she said she thought it was carry¬ 
ing light equipment most to far to try doing 
without brains.” 
“You have a wise mother, and it’s a pity she 
isn’t along to take care of you,” Jim commented; 
“but since she isn’t, we will do the best we can.” 
They found a place 
where a clay bank shut 
off the east wind and 
built a little fire. Robert 
hung his shoes and 
socks upon a short pole 
and rested one end of 
the pole on a crotch 
stuck into the ground. 
Holding the other end 
in his hand, he swayed 
his water-logged belong¬ 
ings back and forth over 
the fire until they began 
to turn their moisture 
into a waving cloud of 
steam. Across the mea¬ 
dows they heard the 
crack of Henry’s rifle, 
and made some wagers 
upon whether or not he 
had hit his mark. A 
little later a bunch of 
fur fell with a thud 
upon old Billy’s shoul¬ 
der and rolled down in 
front of Jim. 
“Hi, there! you quit 
throwing woodchucks,” 
Billy called as he looked 
up over the bank and 
saw Henry, grinning 
broadly, peeping through 
a bough of dogwood blossoms. 
“I saw from the smoke that you fellows had 
started camp, and thought I better bring you 
some meat,” said Henry as he clambered down 
the bank and perched himself at one end of the 
row seated upon the floodwood plank. “What’s 
the matter, Robert—gone into the laundry busi¬ 
ness?” 
“How did you know we were out?” Jim asked. 
“That’s easy enough. Traced you up the 
creek by the poppings, and where the poppings 
stopped the smoke started. If I can’t trust you 
fellows to play along the brook a little while 
without your pushing Robert in, I shall have 
to take him with me after this.” 
“Say, Robert,” old Billy interrupted, "seeing 
you bare-footed makes me think of the time 
