THE NORTH PLATTE SEMI-WEEKLY TRIBUNE — AUGUST 3, 1897
S N A K E S O F B O Y H O O D ♢ SOME EXTINCT REPTILIANS THAT HAD MARVELOUS ATTRIBUTES ♢ The Terrible Blue Racer and the Thousands of Victims He Didn’t Get—The Hoop Snake That All Knew of, but Few Ever Saw—Peculiarities of Glass Snakes.
The blue racer was an ophidian calculated to cause the hair of the small boy to stand on end like the quills of the fretful porcupine. Nothing could exceed the fiendish malignity of this snake, whose powers of locomotion were incredibly swift and whose appetite for boy was forever on edge. And it was only by relieving himself of all impediments, such as the bucket containing his small store of berries or his fishing tackle and can of bait, that a boy was able to avoid capture. It was the current belief that when the blue racer came up with his prey be swiftly infolded the unlucky wight in his deadly coils, crushed the life out of him and then devoured him at his leisure. So far as history goes and the mortuary records show no boy was ever cut off in the bloom of his youth by a blue racer, but disasters of this kind were only avoided by the remarkable fleetness of foot displayed on such occasions.
His terror gave him supernatural strength and added wings to his feet, and the blue racer was incontinently left in the shade. The blue racer, according to a cloud of youthful witnesses who have testified thereto, was a snake ranging from 11 to 16 feet long, the average length being about 15 feet. Its aspect was threatening in the extreme, and
