“All safe,” replied Jerry, with a smile. “Now will you let us attend to you?”
“I will now—yes,” answered the scientist. “But I’m not hurt. I’m just held fast by the rock. Its weight rests on some other stones, and doesn’t press much on my foot. If you can pry it off I can get up, I think.”
The rock was a large one, and, as Mr. Snodgrass said, was kept from all but a slight contact with his leg by a sort of arch of other loose stones.
“Here’s a big tree branch we can use for a lever,” said Mr. Brill, as he brought the limb up, and stuck one end of it beneath the stone. While he and Jim Nestor pried on it, raising the big boulder, Jerry and his chums assisted the professor to crawl out, and in a few seconds he was free. He could stand up, but when he tried to walk he limped.
“You’ll need some liniment,” was Jerry’s opinion.
“Never mind about me!” exclaimed the collector. “Where are those snakes? We must get the others, too. I saw a lot of ’em here, but most of ’em got away. It was when I made a jump for the two that I slipped, and sent a lot of rocks rolling down the side hill. Then I was caught and pinned fast. But I had hold of the snakes, and I knew you would come along, sometime, and rescue me.”
“You have had a narrow escape,” said Jerry, as he handed his friend the two boxes containing the serpents.
“That’s what he did!” exclaimed Harvey Brill. “That nearly happened to me in the landslide after I had hid the gold. But are you sure you’re all right, Professor?”
“Sure! Of course! Oh, you little beauties!” exclaimed the scientist, as he gazed at the wriggling snakes. “How glad I am that I found you! You’ll be worth hundreds of dollars to the museum, and all the other collectors will envy me. I think I’ll write a book about these snakes,” he went on. “I must stay here a long time, and make a study of them.”