Thus taken by surprise, I stood motionless and with my heart throbbing.  The reptile worked itself free, and twisting round my leg, almost in a second bit me two or three times.  The sharp pain which I felt from the fangs recalled me to consciousness, and though I felt convinced that I was lost, I resolved that my destroyer should die also.  With my bowie-knife I cut its body into a hundred pieces; walked away very sad and gloomy, and sat upon my blanket near the fire.

How rapid and tumultuous were my thoughts!  To die so young, and such a dog’s death!  My mind reverted to the happy scenes of my early youth, when I had a mother, and played so merrily among the golden grapes of sunny Frances and when later I wandered with my father in the Holy Land, in Italy and Egypt.  I also thought of the Shoshones, of Roche and Gabriel, and I sighed.  It was a moral agony; for the physical pain had subsided, and my leg was almost benumbed by paralysis.

The sun went down, and the last carmine tinges of his departed glory reminded me how soon my sun would set; then the big burning tears smothered me, for I was young, very young, and I could not command the courage and resignation to die such a horrible death.  Had I been wounded in the field, leading my brave Shoshones, and hallooing the war-whoop, I would have cared very little about it; but thus, like a dog!  It was horrible! and I dropped my head upon my knees, thinking how few hours I had now to live.

I was awakened from that absorbing torpor by my poor horse, who was busy licking my ears.  The faithful animal suspected something was wrong, for usually at such a time I would sing Spanish ditties or some Indian war-songs.  Sunset was also the time when I brushed and patted him.  The intelligent brute knew that I suffered, and, in its own way, showed me that it participated in my affliction.  My water, too, was boiling on the fire, and the bubbling of the water seemed to be a voice raised on purpose to divert my gloomy thoughts.  “Aye, boil, bubble, evaporate,” exclaimed I; “what do I care for water or tea now?”

Scarcely had I finished these words, when, turning suddenly my head round, my attention was attracted by an object before me, and a gleam of hope irradiated my gloomy mind:  close to my feet I beheld five or six stems of the rattlesnake master weed.  I well knew the plant, but I had been incredulous as to its properties.  Often had I heard the Indians speaking of its virtues, but I had never believed them.  “A drowning man will seize at a floating straw.”  By a violent effort I got up on my legs, went to fetch my knife, which I had left near the dead snake, and I commenced digging for two or three of the roots, with all the energy of despair.