A Novel Weapon
IN her interesting book,A Woman Tenderfoot, Mrs. Ernest Thompson-Seton gives a stirring account of her fight with a rattlesnake, in which she, the victor, was armed with a very novel weapon—a frying-pan.
“The rattler stopped his pretty gliding motion away from me and seemed in doubt. Then he began to take on a few quirks. ‘He is going to coil and then to strike,’ said I, recalling a paragraph from my school reader. It was an unhappy moment!
“I knew that tradition had fixed the proper weapons to be used against rattlesnakes: a stone (more, if necessary), a stick (forked one preferred), and, in rare cases, a revolver. I had no revolver. There was not a stick in sight, and not a stone bigger than a hazelnut; but there was the rattler. I cast another despairing glance around and saw, almost at my feet and half hidden by sage brush, several inches of rusty iron—blessed be the teamster who had thrown it there. I darted towards it, and, despite tradition, turned on the rattler, armed with the goodly remains of a—frying-pan.
“The horrid thing was ready for me with darting tongue and flattened head—another instant it would have sprung. Smash! on its head went my valiant frying-pan and struck a deadly blow, although the thing managed to get from under it. I recaptured my weapon and again it descended upon the reptile’s head, settling it this time.
“Feeling safe, I now took hold of the handle to finish it more quickly. Oh! that tail—that awful, writhing, lashing tail. I can stand Indians, bears, wolves, anything but that tail, and a rattler is all tail, except its head. If that tail touches me I shall let go. It did touch me. I did not let go. Pride held me there, for I heard the sound of galloping hoofs. Whiskers’ empty saddle had alarmed the rest of the party.
“My snake was dead now, so I put one foot on him to take his scalp—his rattles, I mean—when horrid thrills coursed through me. The uncanny thing began to wriggle and rattle with old-time vigor. But, fortified by Nimrod’s assurance that it was ‘purely reflex neuro-ganglionic movement,’ I hardened my heart and captured his ‘pod of dry peas.’â€