Just before sunset we were ready to leave our sad associates, and we rode down to the river to give our mules a drink. The St. Mary's is a deep stream running through a level stretch with no banks. The mules had often been caved into the deep water and learned to get down on their knees to drink. For fear of an accident I got off and allowed my mule to kneel and drink. As he got upon his feet I swung into the saddle and started on. I had scarcely got firmly seated when, right under the mule, a rattler sang out. My double-barrel gun was hanging from my shoulder, muzzle down. As quick as a flash I slipped my arm through the strap, cocked the gun at the same time, and the mule shying, brought his snakeship in range, and just as he was in the act of striking, I shot him dead. The only good thing about the rattler is that he always gives the alarm before striking. [Illustration: A. J. ANDERSON, Ph.D., First President of Whitman College.] [Illustration: REV. JAMES F. EATON, D.D., Second President of Whitman College.] It was about three o'clock in the morning when we got through the desert and reached a cluster of trees, and resolved to stop and take a little sleep, and give our mules the feed of grass we had tied behind our saddles. We found a fallen tree and tied our animals to the boughs and fed them. A small company of packers were there asleep with their heads toward the fallen tree. We passed them to near the butt of the tree, threw aside some rotten chunks, spread a blanket, and each rolled up in another, lay down to rest. My snake-lariat was with the wagon, but I was too tired to think much of it. The Doctor being up all the night before, was asleep in two minutes. I was dozing off, with rattlesnakes and all the horrors of the past day running through my mind, when I was suddenly awakened by something pulling and working in my long, bushy hair. Barbers were not plentiful on the plains, and, besides, the plainsmen wear long hair as a protection. I suppose it was only a few minutes of suspense, and yet it seemed an hour, before I became wide awake, and reached at once the conclusion that I had poked my head near the log where his snakeship was sleeping, and the evening being cool, he was trying to secure warmer quarters. I knew it would not do to move my head. I quietly slipped my right arm from the blanket, and slowly moved my hand within six inches of my head. I felt the raking of a harder material, which seemed like a fang scraping the scalp. This made me almost frantic. Suddenly I grasped the offender by the head, jerking hair and all, and, jumping to my feet, yelled, so that every packer bounced to his feet, and seized his gun, thinking we were attacked by Indians. This is a round-about way to tell a snake story, but all the facts had to be recited to reveal the real conditions.