This is how it is done: a party of snakers go up to the
mountains in the early autumn, with provisions for all winter, and
putting up a snakery at some central point, get to work as soon as the
torpid season sets in, and before there is much snow. I presume you
know that when the nights begin to get cold, the snakes go in under
big flat stones, snuggle together, and lie there frozen stiff until
the warm days of spring limber them up for business.
"We go about, raise up the rocks, tie the worms into convenient
bundles and carry them to the snakery, where, during the snow season,
they are assorted, labelled according to quality, and packed away for
transportation. Sometimes a single showman will have as many as a
dozen snakers in the mountains all winter.
"Ben and I were out, one day, and had gathered a few sheaves of prime
ones, when we discovered a broad stone that showed good indications,
but we couldn't raise it. The whole upper part of the mountain seemed
to be built mostly upon this one stone. There was nothing to be done
but mole it--dig under, you know; so taking the spade I soon widened
the hole the creatures had got in at, until it would admit my body.
Crawling in, I found a kind of cell in the solid rock, stowed nearly
full of beautiful serpents, some of them as long as a man.
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