by Harry Barnet
As strange a tale, however, as one is ever likely to meet on the Ohio River was told by a quaint one of the pioneer type who remained among us from other days. It concerns a high knob on the north shore, about midway the length of the stream. This knob has never been otherwise than brown and bare at any season of the year, though its soil appears to be no different from the grass-and-tree-smothered peaks about it. The tradition tattler said that in the days when parrots formed shrill, chattering mobs in the timber growth along the Ohio River, the knob was the home of a monster reptile, the “foot snake,” so called because it did not glide. It had no legs, but at each end of its body there were three-cornered and flat feet that took hold on the ground like suckers.
The monster moved by strides like a measuring worm. It raised itself on its hind feet and waved its head high in the air until it located a place to take fresh hold. Then it bent forward, gripped its front feet to the ground and drew its body up from behind. When the “foot snake” went from one side to the other of the river and of deep ravines it, threw its head across, got a grip on its front feet and then swung its body over.
Wherever the footprints of the snake were found there was danger. The serpent was an ever-present terror, because it bleated like a fawn to attract men and animals to it. Then
