As usual, Captain Sprowl was the cook, with Dick as first aide, otherwise deputy assistant and bottle-washer in ordinary.

“What’s the matter with our strolling off and seeing if we can’t get a shot at something?” suggested Jack to Tom.

“Suits me first rate,” was the response. “Come on.”

The two lads shouldered their rifles and made off into the woods, which were not particularly thick in the vicinity of the open space where they had alighted. As they had not much time at their disposal the boys were ready to fire at the first thing they saw that looked edible. Peering intently about they made their way forward.

Suddenly there was a rush and scramble in a thicket ahead of them and some small creatures rushed out, snorting and grunting.

Jack’s rifle was at his shoulder like a flash. He fired two shots and Tom followed with another.

Having fired, they ran forward quickly, and found that two small animals that looked like miniature pigs had fallen before their rifles. They were indeed a variety of wild swine common enough in that district, and weighed about forty or fifty pounds apiece.

Highly delighted with the results of their marksmanship, the boys set out to return to camp. Tom carried one of the slain porkers while Jack shouldered the other.

“Pork chops for dinner, all right,” chuckled Tom, who was slightly in advance. “I guess——”

Jack, who was a few paces behind, and from whom Tom was temporarily hidden, noticed the abrupt breaking off of Tom’s speech.

“Well, go on,” he admonished. “I’m listening. I——”

“Jack! Jack! Come quick!”

The cry rang through the trees sharply. Jack’s heart gave a mighty bound. Tom’s shout was vibrant with terror. Could he have encountered a band of Indians? Some wild beast?

Dropping his pig, Jack saw to the mechanism of his rifle and plunged forward. The next instant he came to a standstill, literally petrified with horror.

Tom had stumbled over a root and had fallen prone. That much was evident. He was just scrambling to his feet as Jack came on the scene, but already he had perceived the same object that had caused Jack to stop short in his tracks with a sharp intake of his breath and a face that was white as ashes.

Looking upward the boy saw what at first appeared to be a supple highly-colored liana swinging and swaying from the upper branches of a fair-sized mango tree. But this “liana” as Jack had for an instant deemed it, he saw, at almost the same instant, was instinct with life!

Instead of the moving object being part of the tree, or a creeper dependent from it, its supple, cylindrical body and glittering scales showed it to be a monster serpent.

It was an anaconda, the giant boa-constrictor of the Brazilian forests, which has been known to attain the enormous length of forty feet. The monster hanging above Tom was of huge dimensions. At least fifteen feet of its scaly body hung from the tree. How much more was wrapped about the upper branches in sinuous coils, Jack could only guess.

As he gazed on Tom’s predicament his blood fairly congealed in his veins. He felt incapable of action. As if in a dream he saw Tom struggling to rise from the ground and escape the pendent terror above him. But as he moved Jack saw, to his horror, that the anaconda slowly loosened its upper coils and hung lower.

So swiftly, yet so insensibly did it manage its gliding movements, that Jack had hardly taken in the details of the alarming scene before him when the monstrous creature’s head had reached the level of the ground.

With its jaws agape and forked tongue darting, the reptile began slowly oscillating as if trying its range.

“Run, Tom! Run!” screamed Jack, aroused to life at last.

But Tom appeared to be incapable of motion. He paused on his hands and knees as he struggled to his feet and remained in this posture. The horror of his situation appeared to deprive him of the power of locomotion.

Determined to make an effort to save Tom even though he risked his comrade’s life in so doing, Jack raised his rifle and fired. But his hands shook so that his aim was faulty and the bullet flew wide.

But the bullet had one effect, and that the one that Jack least desired. It appeared to arouse the great snake from its deliberate movements.

With a swift, almost imperceptible motion, its head swept forward, and several............