The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 28, 1898, Page 19

IrHE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 1898. up on the river bank. You've never .smelled dead snake.” “But how are they useful?” I asked. “Principally in the orchards. Don't know how we’d get along if it wasn’'t for them snakes. All we do is let them alone and they simply go in and just help themselves to all sorts of bugs, ants, gophers and small animals that play the mischief with fruit trees. And the snakes don’t stay on the ground either. Not much. If there’s any ani- mal up a tree that they want they go up and get him. And these snakes will tackle any other kind of snake that they meet. Rattlers are their favorites, and it don’t take them long to do 'em up.” We were standing on the sidewalk in front of Sherring’s saloon and I was listening eagerly to all the old resident of Klamath Falls had to tell me, en- tirely oblivious to surroundings. ¥ Suddenly he took hold of my coat and gave it a gentle tug. S Step off here a moment and let them pass by,” he said. I.did as told and stood in the gut- ter while a brace of large snakes rapidly passed along the sidewalk in the direction of the river. “But don't these snakes ever do any harm?” 1 asked, COIL OF SNAKES BREAKING THE LIMB OF A TREE. When the rocks get too warm in the hot summer days the snakes love to climb into the trees bordering the river and en- joy the warm air. For some reason they take a great delight in forming a wriggling, coiling network of snakes. As this ball spread out on the logs at the foot of Klamath Falls in Ore- gon. And what is more the residents up A o= ; 3 £ there rather encourage thelr existence. J 54 For any one caught killing any of them is lkely to be zealously prosecuted. In it s a case of the people liking Ay CESTNYIN N e water snakes of the Klamath River are one of the wonders of nat- sientists have spent g them and there is to learn. The snakes ss and belong to utaenia’ up and down n at any time son. During the Ives into living the bot- e i a great d absolutel k 1 be Ating. seem to be most nu- ot Klamathe Kilamath a town of 1500 makes some pretension to itan. Yet there are wild in the streets all vicinity spring the snakes come m of the river and dur- a their on tk logs. along the snakes become more Jore numerous, until will no longer hold them and the river banks. are rather timid and scurry off into the water at the ap- proach of a h 1 being, but in a short time soon grow to learn that no harm will come to them. When this stage of with the inhabitants of Klam- s is reached the snakes can be watched from a short distance and they ill not pay the least attention. It is even P ble to walk among them, but not many people care to do this. Although the people up in Klamath Falls know the snakes are no more harmful than a pigeon, nobody ever goes in swimming during the “‘snake intim: ath Fe To the snakes amusing themselves on the river bank during the long TUMBLING A ROLL OF SNAKES BACK INTO THE RIVER. In the early fall, when the rocks are beginning to take on a slight chill the snakes have the fashion of gatcering in balls. the “creeps.” In fact, many people in Klamath Falls cannot be induced to go near the river for fear of seeing horri- ble sights. What starts the snakes seems to be something of a mystery. A bunch of several thousand will be stretched out on the rocks as motionless as if dead. Suddenly one moves, then another and another. Instantly the whole mass be- gins to wriggle. Here and there the snakes glide over one another uttering a peculiar squeal that is almost blood- curdling. Then the fun begins. The snakes are from five to six feet in length and thick in proportion. Their bodies are correspondingly heavy, but they move about with the greatest ease. All through the wriggling mass big fellows can be seen ralsing themselves high in the air and snapping their jaws, just as if they were angry and would attack the first creature that came near them. But it is all fun, and when they get tired they draw out to one side and give the others a chance. In few minutes the wriggling mass somehow gets to moving in a circle. Round and round they go, one trying to catch the other, but never succeeding. The air is now full of squeals of the blood-curdling kind. After the snakes have been ‘“‘exercis- ' a few minutes a peculiar, inde- s bable odor can be noticed. At first it is not ve unpleasant, but after a while a similarity to skunk can be de- tected. What the smell eventually be- comes is not known, for at this stage of the game all spectators move back as far as is 1 ry. Why vou people get rid of tho E kes?” 1 asked one of the in- habitants who had been watching the performance one day last week. “Don’t want to,”. he replied. “They are u 1 as well 4s ornamental. And besides there's another reason why we don't give the boys permission to go out among them with clubs.” “What's that?” I asked. “They'd smell bad.” “Don’t they smell bad now?"” “Yes, pretty bad, that's true, but that ain't a marker to the way they'd smell if ten thousand dead ones was piled some o snakes have,” he continued, after a pause, “but you won't see it until next month. That's rolling them- ,;‘ of snakes increases in size by eager newcomers the limb grad- “Oh, yes: everything has its draw- b ually bends, and very frequently the increasing mass of rep- backs, you know,” the old timer re- 1k tiles break it. Along the river bank are scores of branches and piled, “On these warm days. after ¢ { 2 3 g : a cold night, the snakes climb into ? limbs that have been broken in this fashion. the trees and hang there in a sort 4 TAKES s rerywhere; but hours of a warm day is a sight never to of network. As long as there are \ A zfl‘,’u \,\:\E\ Epredabnadeay be forgotten. They are quite playful only a few It don’t matter, but >4 Bk g 7 ® and exhibit a great deal more liveli- Sometimes they get so thick they ‘1 54 There are hundreds, thou- 20¢ GERPLL B AT CE bected of them. break the branches and ruin the /711 sands, millions of them, all pov 8% WOHE 0t sives most people trees. m;( D e “There’s another trick these % selves into balls. Hundreds of them get together and mix them- “selves up so badly you can’t tell which Lead and tail belongs to the same snake. And it takes them a long time to get apart. I've seen some men roll a ball of them as big as a barrel and tumble it kerplash into the river. How the snakes on the inside manage to live is more than I can say.” Snakes are not the only queer things they have in abundance at Klamath Falls. This is also the “toad” season. At this time myriads of the tiny sau- rians come down on one side of the river, cross the bridge, go right through the town and up on the other side. ‘Where they come from and where they g0 to no Klamath resident knows. These toads are about one inch long, and are a feast for the snakes. The reptiles swallow at least a dozen of them apiece, and still there are always millions of toads left, hopping, hop- ping toward the bridge, ‘@eross it and into the country beyond. As well as snakes and toads, Klam- ath Falls also has a periodical visit from a bullfrog “wave.” This comes every three or four years, and “mil- lions” again is the only numeral that will describe the quantity of the rep- tiles. They always come during the skin shedding season and wander far from the river bank. On warm days they will get on the sunny side of a house and pile on top of one another as high as the window sills. Here they pull off their skins and eat them. After this act is accomplished they disap- pear, no man knows where. All summer the inhabitants of Klam- ath Falls have some aquatic visitor to interest them, and when the long win- ter days come and the rain comes down in torrents many grow quite lone- ly and long for the return of the snake season. —_——————— In Teneriffe the people communicate with each other at a distance of over four miles by an organized systam of whistling. WILD RIDES ON THE HE old Santa Fe trall, ‘tke many of the world’s great highways, has been a racecourse at times, over which some of the most marvelous rides have been ef- fected by men W -~se powers of endurance have never been excelled in history. Among those who were famous as long distance riders in the days of the “Commerce of the Prairies” was F. X. Aubrey. His remarkable feats in this particular have certainly never been Per haps it arises through the selfishness of the big snakes trying to keep above the chill rocks by coiling over the smaller snakes. size of big barrels. whole ball will dissolve and slip away if a stone is thrown into the heap. At any rate, these balls of snakes are frequently seen of the Before they begin to grow torpid through the weather the Later on they become so torpid that a ball of them is sometimes rolled over by using a viece of board as a lever. OLD SANTA FE TRAIL. Remarkable cxperiences of Buffalo Bill, F. X. Aubrey and other famous scouts and daring pony express messengers. excelled, if they have even ever been equaled, which is doubtful. Aubrey was a Scotch-Canadian by birth and emigrated direct from Quebec to the remote West. He was a man of education, apparently, for I find that he was the author of one or two meri- torfous articles on a journey and so- journ in California, which were pub- lished in one of the « rly magazines of the country, about the time of the dis- covery of gold on the Pacific Coast. He had also traveled extensively through the then almost inaccessible region of what is now the territory of Arizona, and from him was first learned the fact that the savages of that remote Mexi- can country employed gold bullets in charging their crude firearms. General Marcy met F. X. Aubrey in 1849, who had just returned from Cali- fornia, and en route crossed the Colo- rado near the outlet of the big canyon, where he met some Indians, with whom, he informed Marc+ he ex- changed leaden for golden rifle balls, and that these Indians did not have the slightest idea of the rzlative value of the two metals. The first ride Aubrey attempted was in 1850. He made a bet that he could cover the distance from Santa Fe, N. M., to In.dependence Mo., over the trall, in eight days. It is 765 miles be- tween the two poinis via the “Santa Fe trail,” as the freight caravans traveled it, and by that route, on a wager of $1000, Aubrey was to ride. Aubrey succeeded in winning, making his destination, the Jones House in In- dependence, three hours before the ex- piration of his time, During this, his first ride, he killed a number of horses, the death of one when within twenty- five miles of Council Grove compelling him to walk to that place, carrying hig . saddle on his back, where he obtained another animal and continued his won- derful ride. This feat of Aubrey's was regarded as the greatest ride ever made by any one in ancient or modern times, and he became the hero of the incipient bor- der town, Independence, where he was feted and made the lion of the day. His fame spread throughout the entire AT \LLION LRLO®ATE FALLS A WARM CORNER ON THE ROCKS, KLAMATH FALLS, OREGON. From a photograph by Mrs. Sarah E. Harshbarger. The photograph from which this sketch was made was taken in a quiet corner of the Harshbarger back yard, which runs down to the river. days and nights was warm and even. The photograph was taken during the summer, when the temperature of the In the fall of the year, when the nights are chill and the days are warm, the snakes gather in the greatest number, for they dearly love to come out of the cold water and iLask in the warm sun- shine. pid mass. West, Including California, where he was well known. Although pecple marveled much at the wonderful endurance of the man, and the remarkable time in which ne had made the tri still Aub. himself was not at all satisfied with it. He de- termined to break that record, and the following season he made another wager, of $5000 in gold, that he would succeed in dping sc. He aceomplished his record-breaking dash across the great plains in the marvelous. time of only five days and thirteen hours. His objective point was the same hotel, the Jones House, Wwhere he had ridden to on his former trip. - On this one, when he reached that hostelry, he was perfectly ex- hausted and in a fainting cendition, his horse Quivering from head to foot and White with foam. Aubrev was lifted from the back of his faithful animal by his friends and carried into his room in the house, where he lay in a complete stupor for two days. Six ho ses, which previous to starting nta Fe had been stationed at e 'ing from twenty-five to fifty miles along the route, fell dead under him, so terribly fast did he force them on. He possessed a beautiful mare, Nel- lie, a favorite animal, noted for her speed and endurance, but she expired at the e1d of the first 150 miles. vA_uhrey was killed by Major Richard Weightman, a volunteer officer of the Mexican War, and at the time of the tragedy was publishing a paper in Santa Fe. He and Aubrey had been warm friends for years. After his sec- ond great ride Aubrey left Santa Fe for California, and upon his departure for that region Weightman published an account of his friend’s leaving, which, howtlfver, did not at all meet with Au- brey’s approval. Upon the latter’s re- turn to Santa Fe in 1854 he and Weight- man met, of course, journeyed to a saloon, where both ordered whisky, but before either had time to raise his glass to his mouth Aubrey said to Weightman,“Why dld you publish that —— lie about my going to California ?” The manner in which Aubrey put the question angered Major Weightman, and he threw his whisky in Aubrey's face. Aubrey reached for his revolver, but before he could draw it Weightman sprang upon him and plunged his bowie knife into Aubrey’s heart, killing him instantly. Weightman was, of course, acquitted of the charge of murder. Aubrey lies buried in an unknown grave. On his last great ride he rode day and night, stopping only long enough to leap from his tired animal and spring on a fresh one. He made more than 200 miles every twenty-four hours, and all the sleep he took aggregated but three hours during the entire five days. Au- brey's ride eclipsed that famous one recorded in the old English legends of the outlaw Dick Turpin, from London to York. Weightman was a dapper little fel- low, extremely polite and affable, prid- ing himself upon “first family” connec- tions, and always sported a fine cane. He had a small round ball of a head, bald on top, light hair, florid com- plexion and small, piercing, deep-set eyes. He was a man of some abllity, a flerce Southerner and defender of slavery. He was plucky. He was as poor as he was proud, a high liver, with the tastes and habits of a millionaire and the purse of a pauper. He resided in Atchison, Kan., for several years; was City Recorder for one or two terms and was a candidate for re-election in 1861, but was defeated. When de- prived of his office he was literally re- duced to extremities. Weightman was a most gallant officer in the Mexican war, and when hostilities. commenced between the North and South he joined the Confederate forces, with whom all his sympathies were enlisted. At the terrible battle of Wilson's Creek, at the head of his brigade, he was killed at the very summit of “Bloody HIill”; three bullets pierced his body. = He and Gen- eril Lyon fell within thirty vards of each other. Both were brou=ht off the field and lald side by side upon blank- ets under the shade of the same tree. William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) has made a remarkable record as a long- distance rider, not for speed, but endur- ance. Cody’s famous ride over portions of the “old Santa Fe trail,” and its ramifying branches, was of such a character as to call forth the encomi- ums of General Sheridan, who refers to it in his ‘“Memoirs,” as well as General R. I Dodge, himself a distinguished At that season it is impossible in some places to see the ground on account of the wriggling, werming, tor- millions of snakes. SNAKES GORGING THEN.\SELVES WITH TOADS. Klamath Falls has another silurian wonder outside its Every year in the fall, about September, countless toads, about the size of one’s thumb, come hopping through one end of the town and make for the other end and across the big bridge which spans the river. come from and where they go nobody knows. ants have to say is that regularly every year in the fall the deluge of toads passes through the town and disappears over the bridge and there’s millions of them. The snakes make an annual feast of these little fellows, and they gather by the thousands at the bridge to intercept usually devours wight or ‘en toads, but this evidentiy makes no impression on the number of toads, for, according to the natives,” “there’s always millions of toads left.” The Klamath Falls has another wonder — its The deluge of bullfrogs comes along every three or four years and, like the toads, there doesn’t seem to be any limit to them. They pile up in the warm corners of porches and back yards several feet deep, get the chill out of their bones and then, like the toads, they hop along and disappear . Where they All the inhabit- them. Each snake bullfrogs. army officer of high rank, who was nevertheless a plainsman and hunter of more than average prowess. Cody’s remarkable ride occurred at the breaking out of the war declared against the allled plains tribes during the winter of 1868-69, in which cele- brated campaign General Sheridan took the field in person, having such Indian fighters as Sully and Custer as his principal lieutenants. Cody tells the “story in excellent taste, and although I was in active service at the same time, and was cognizant of the facts, I shall quote fully from Cody’s own version, as published in his excellent autobiogra- phy. It was commenced on the day on which Cody had his funny vyet rather tragic experience with Santata, the war chief of the Kiowas, when Cody “pulled the wool over the eyes” of the wicked old savage regarding some cat- tle which had no existence in fact, crea- tures of Cody's fertile Imagination, yet the necessary lie was the means of sav- ing the famous scout’s scalp. The story will be found in full in the chap- ter of “Famous Men of the Trail,” in my “The Old Santa Fe Trail.” Cody says: “The commanding offi- cer at Fort Dodge was anxious to send some dispatches to Fort Larned, but the scouts, like those at Fort Hays, were rather backward in volunteering, as it was considered a very dangerous undertaking to make the trip. _As Fort Larred was my post, and as T wanted to go there anyhow, I sald to Austin that I would carry the dispatches, and i# any of the boys wished to go along I would like to have them for com- pany. Austin reported my offer to the commanding officer, who sent for me and said he would be happy to have me take the dispatches, if I could stand the trip mtepfiaumtthmaone. ‘All T want is a good fresh horse, sir,” I said. “‘I am sorry to say that we haven't a decent horse here; but we have a re- liable and honest government mule, if that will do,’ said the officer. ‘Trot. out your mule,’ said I, ‘that’'s good e;w.ugh for me. I'm ready at any time, sir. ‘When the trip was finished I had rid- den from Fort Larned to Fort Zarah, sixty-five miles—there and back—in twelve hours, which included the time I was taken by the Indians across the Arkansas. In the succeeding twelve hours I had gone from Fort Hays to Fort Dodge, thirty miles on horseback, and thirty-five miles on foot, to Fort Larned, and the next night sixty-five miles more to Fort Hays. Altogether I had ridden and walked 355 miles in fifty-eight hours, or an average of six miles an hour. Of course, this may not be regarded as very fast riding, but taking into consideration the fact that it was mostly done in the night and over a wild country. with no roads to fol- low. and that I had to be continually on the lookout for Indians, 1t was thought at the time to be a big ride, as well as a most dangerous one.”