"Have you never found out what the Indians use as an antidote?" I asked. "No, I have tried, but they keep it a carefully guarded secret. One reason why I believe that the secret is so carefully preserved is because they have no antidote, and the whole thing is a bluff. "You see," continued the collector, "in my wanderings about the country I have run across a great many queer people, and as you seem interested in this subject, I will tell you an incident which happened while I was out at camp one time at the White Tanks, catching gila monsters, horned toads, etc. "I remember the year well, because I had a lot of trouble with a very useless assistant of mine, whom I sent to Central America to collect for me. Among the birds he brought back were a lot of skins of the blue chatterer--the one with the purple throat, you know. He knew I was anxious to get new species, so he thought he would be smart and make some for me. So he manufactured five, all with faked labels on, showing that each species was taken at different altitudes. Unfortunately he commenced too high, and the mountains in the vicinity where he collected, and where the labels indicated that the birds were taken, lacked several hundred feet of the necessary altitude for two of the species, so that if his labels were correct he must have shot them out of a balloon. "They all looked alike except about the throat and head. One lot had a gold band across the breast, another had the whole throat gold, others had gold stripes or spots. I believe he produced these gaudy effects with the lighted end of his cigar. "He doctored up a lot of humming-birds, too, and made me a peck of trouble. I fired him, all right. Dishonesty in a trade like mine is, I think, most reprehensible, and there is no money in it, because you are dead sure to get found out. "He was a cute little chap, however, and had learned a lot of tricks from the Indians. He could change a bird's color by feeding it on certain kinds of food. There is a chap in Amsterdam who does about the same thing and brightens up old worn birds which have faded out in the Zoölogical Gardens, and sends them back with all the brilliancy of their original plumage restored; but he cannot turn a red parrot blue, or make a gray bird with a yellow head turn to bright orange all over, as this chap could. He told me how he did it, but the secret is too good to give away. But to get back to the story about rattlesnakes: