ced 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
Zoological 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:

"It was, as I said, in the spring of '89, a party of us were camped at
the White Tanks about forty-five miles north-west of here, and one day a
chap came into our camp, a half-breed Mexican Indian, who called himself
a snake-charmer. He had a box of rattlesnakes which he would allow to
twine round his neck and bite him, for a dollar. He travelled about the
country giving exhibitions with his snakes, and selling the rattlesnake
cure, which was put up in small bottles containing a brown-colored
liquid, which he claimed he made from a plant which was a sure cure for
the bite of the rattlesnake, and a number of the boys bought this
remedy, paying him a dollar a bottle.

"He had seen our camp, as he drove along the road to Phoenix, and he
told us he had been up country for two or three weeks visiting some
mines, where he had done very well, selling his cure to the miners and
exhibiting his snakes.

"There were several of us in the party, and one chap, a doctor by the
name of Baker, who was always playing practical jokes. As we were coming
back to Phoenix, the next day, Miguel, which was the snake-charmer's
real name, I believe, although he was generally known as Mexican John,
decided to stay over a day and go back with us.

"Baker proposed that we should see how much faith Miguel had in his own
antidote. As it happened, I had captured a very big rattlesnake the day
previous, and had him in a box in my tent. By the aid of some forked
sticks and bagging we succeeded in fastening the snake so that he could
not move.