Two Horse-Thieves Have Been Seized And
Flogged, And Bridge, Their Patron, Has Been Ordered To Remove Or Abide The
Consequences.
As we were returning from Dixon on the morning of the 19th, we heard a
kind of humming noise in the grass, which one of the company said
proceeded from a rattlesnake.
We dismounted and found in fact it was made
by a prairie-rattlesnake, which lay coiled around a tuft of herbage, and
which we soon dispatched. The Indians call this small variety of the
rattlesnake, the Massasauger. Horses are frequently bitten by it and come
to the doors of their owners with their heads horribly swelled but they
are recovered by the application of hartshorn. A little further on, one
of the party raised the cry of wolf, and looking we saw a prairie-wolf in
the path before us, a prick-eared animal of a reddish-gray color, standing
and gazing at us with great composure. As we approached, he trotted off
into the grass, with his nose near the ground, not deigning to hasten his
pace for our shouts, and shortly afterward we saw two others running in a
different direction.
The prairie-wolf is not so formidable an animal as the name of wolf would
seem to denote; he is quite as great a coward as robber, but he is
exceedingly mischievous. He never takes full-grown sheep unless he goes
with a strong troop of his friends, but seizes young lambs, carries off
sucking-pigs, robs the henroost, devours sweet corn in the gardens, and
plunders the water-melon patch.
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