158 TRUE BEAR STORIES.

swinging and sweeping in a semi-circle
along before him all the time be-
cause of the incredible number of rattle-
snakes that infested our portion of Ore-
gon in those early days. I shall never
forget the terror in this brave stranger’s
‘face when he first found out that all the
grass on all our grounds was literally alive
with snakes. But he had found a good
place to stay, and he was not going to be
driven out by snakes.

You see, we lived next to a mountain or
steep stony hill known as Rattlesnake
Butte, and in the ledges of limestone rock
here the rattlesnakes hibernated by thou-
sands. In the spring they would crawl out
of the cracks in the cliffs, and that was the
beginning of the end of rattlesnakes in
Oregon. It was awful!

But he had a neighbor by the name of
Wilkins, an old man now, and a recent
candidate for Governor of Oregon, who was
equal to the occasion. He sent back to the
States and had some black, bristly, razor-