Right off we knew Mark was going to pretend we were over in Africa or somewheres plugging along through a forest where the foot of white man had never trod or shot a gun or built a fire. [Note, by Mark Tidd: Must have been a trained foot.]
“I’ll g-go first,” says Mark. “Binney, you be the r-rear-guard. Plunk will watch to the right, and Tallow to the l-left.”
So we started up-stream, keeping close to the water for fear of getting lost.
“Keep your eye p-peeled for boa-constrictors,” says Mark. “Right here we don’t need worry about n-n-natives, ’cause this part of the jungle is full of b-big snakes. Natives is terrified of snakes. If you begin to f-f-feel funny, lemme know. More’n likely it’ll be a boa-constrictor t-tryin’ to charm you. They kin do it. Yes, sir, they kin sit off a hundred feet and look at a man with them b-beady eyes of their’n and ch-ch-charm you so’s you can’t move.”
It made us sort of shiver, because you never know what you’re going to bump into in the woods, especially woods you don’t know anything about. I never heard of any boa-constrictors in Michigan, but that wasn’t any reason why some couldn’t be there. There’s lots in South America, and if one took a notion to crawl up to Baldwin I couldn’t see anything to stop him. It would be quite a crawl for an ordinary snake, but a boa-constrictor, being so big, ought not to have much trouble about it.
“I’ll be glad,” says I, “when the Panama Canal is done.”
“Why?” Mark asked.
“’Cause boa-constrictors won’t be able to get acrost it,” I says. “It’ll be a purtection to the folks of the United States against the savage beasts that live in the Amazon jungles when they’re to home.”
Mark grinned. “I hain’t n-never heard that exact reason given,” says he, “for buildin’ a canal, b-b-but I dun’no’ but it’s as good as a lot of others.”
We went hiking along for another half an hour. All of a sudden Mark stopped and held up his finger. “S-s-s-savages,” he whispered. In a jiffy we were all lying on our stummicks in the high grass, for, sure enough, we could hear a splashing in the stream that meant somebody or something was coming down toward us.