A fire guard is to be plowed around the den at a safe distance, and then a truck having several barrels of gasoline will be run over the recks and the gasoline emptied into the den. The truck will be driven outside the fire guard, and the prairie within the circle set on fire. It is believed that after the fire reaches the gasolene there will be short work of the snakes. This being probably the last convention of the undesirable reptile residents, the beautiful pine clad hills

will be safe for campers and t< wrists, as well as nature loving citizens in the years to come.

Beautiful Pine Ridge

A few days since the historian topped the pine ridges of Sioux county, just as the sun was rising.

Around, the glory of the mountain maze, White pinnacles above the evergreen.

All sparkling with Aurora's slanting rays ; The tenseness of the altitudes, serene.

Saddle mountain. Coliseum rocks. Bold elevations high above the trees.

The sunlight penetrating hidden nooks. The forest whispering in the morning breeze.

My mind went back to the eighties, when I first saw the pine-clad hills of western Nebraska, and in the language of St. George Cooke when he first beheld these same hills, I said "this is my space."

True I had never heard of Cooke at that time, but there are thousands who for the first time have beheld the pine ridges of Nebraska, have heard their hearts say to them the same words. We who have lived here long have grown familiar, and day after day in the plodding toil of men we notice them not. Yet occasionally we will straighten our shoulders and look out across the hill or plain, and the spirit of the Infinite sweeps over us as we wonder why people let the little things of ordinary life annoy them.