SNAKES

There is a snake hereabouts called the Indigo snake. Not a native snake. I'm told the King ranch imported them from India years ago to help hold the rattler in check. Them indigo snakes eat rattlers, and they seem to've reduced the population considerable.

Late last Saturday I was walking along the south-west property line, and I come up on the damndest sight I ever seen.

One of them indigos, about three feet long, 'uz trying to swaller, tail first, a rattler just as big as he wuz. Now, the rattler didn't go fer that none 'tall,, an' he wuz kickin' 'n fussin' somut fierce. Finally the rattler got his head back to th' tail of the indigo an' started swallerin' him. It was quite a contest, to see which 'un 'ould swaller the other.

When both of 'em had about half the other'n swallered, they stopped fer a while. Guess they'uz tired, 'n needed to rest.

Then they started agin. Workin' their jaws, the way they do, swallerin' a inch at a time. Next thing I knowed, they was about six inches of the rattler hanging out of the indigo’s mouth, an' 'bout six or seven inches of the indigo sticking out of the rattler. They wuz bent around in a tiny circle, I didn't think they could bend that tight, but they kept on aworking.

'Bout that time a Mexican Eagle swooped down, looking to see if there wuz a meal. He saw me an' pulled up afore he got to the ground, and I watched him climb' back up to soar around, huntin'. I looked back down at the snakes, an' the indigo's head wuz sticking out of the rattler's mouth, and vice versy. 'n then there'uz a little puff of dust an' they both disappeared!!!