Close at hand was a tall tree, and upon this Allen cut his initials in large letters. Then he walked to all the trees in the vicinity and cut hands on them pointing to the first tree.
"Now, I reckon it's all right," he said to himself. "And the next best thing is to strike out for home."
Climbing the tree, Allen took his bearings as well as he was able, and then struck off as rapidly as his tired legs and sore feet would permit.
He had covered perhaps half a mile when he came to a steep decline. He tried to proceed down this with care, but slipped and rolled with a crash through the brush to the bottom.
It was a bad fall and hurt him not a little, but that was not the worst of it.
The passage through the brush aroused half a score of snakes, some small and others a yard and over in length, and now they came after him, hissing angrily and several preparing to dart at him.
It was small wonder that Allen gave a yell. He knew the reptiles were, many of them, poisonous, and he had not the first thing with which to defend himself. He leaped back to retreat, but only to find himself surrounded.
No one who has never been surrounded by snakes can realize the terrible feeling which awakens in one's breast at such an experience. It is a feeling that, once realized, is never forgotten. Allen said afterward he felt as if his hair had lifted from his head and his heart had had a bath in ice water.
"Great Scott!" were the words which escaped from his lips. "This is the worst yet!"
He had no time to say more, for at that moment one of the snakes leaped through the air directly for his hand. He threw his hand up, caught the reptile by the tail and flung it, hissing, among its fellows.