But his laugh was stopped short for, an instant later they all beheld something that almost made their hearts stop beating.
They could look into the midst of the camp, and there, in front of the tent, writhing about in a confusion of dishes and food, was an immense snake!
[CHAPTER XVI]
AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER
“Quick with that gun, Bob!” cried Jerry. “Now’s your chance for a shot!”
Bob raised his weapon and fired, but his nervousness, and the sudden terror into which the sight of the reptile threw him, made his aim unsteady. The bullet cut the branches of a tree four feet above the serpent.
“Let me try!” exclaimed the professor. “I think I can get him.”
Bob handed over the gun.
“No, I don’t mean with that,” and the scientist began making a slip noose with a rope.