La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

398 ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS. [1685.deceased Sieur le Gros. She was bitten in the jawwhen she was with me, as I was fishing by the shoreof the bay. I gave her a little theriac [an antidotethen in vogue], which cured her,as it did one of oursows, which came home one day with her head soswelled that she could hardly hold it up. Thinkingit must be some snake that had bitten her, I gaveher a dose of the theriac mixed with meal andwater." The patient began to mend at once. "Ikilled a good many rattle-snakes by means of theaforesaid bitch, for when she saw one she would barkaround him, sometimes for a half hour together,tillI took my gun and shot him. I often found them inthe bushes, making a noise with their tails. WhenI had killed them, our hogs ate them." He devotesmany pages to the plants and animals of the neighborhood,most of which may easily be recognizedfrom his description.With the buffalo, which he calls " our daily bread,his experiences were many and strange.Being, likethe rest of the party, a novice in the art of shootingthem, he met with many disappointments. Once,having mounted to the roof of the large house in thefort, he saw a dark moving object on a swell of theprairie three miles off; and rightly thinking that itwas a herd of buffalo, he set out with six or sevenmen to try to kill some of them. After a while, hediscovered two bullslying in a hollow; and signingto the rest of his party to keep quiet, he made hisapproach, gun in hand. The bulls presently jumped