Ned hastened over, and sure enough, there was a small frog in as tight a fix as ever a small frog could be! Each hind leg was deep in the maw of a garter snake; and now the two snakes, forced to suspend their swallowing operations, were lustily pulling in opposite directions, while his frogship, stretched between them, was shrieking for help.
“Oh, pshaw! Let’s rescue the poor thing,” cried Ned; and suiting his action to his word he struck one of the snakes a blow with a switch that he had in his hand. Startled, the snake dropped the frog—whereupon the other would have fled with the booty, had not Hal halted him and made him disgorge.
The frog, nothing daunted, hopped away. Bob turned himself his avenger. Wrinkling back his lips, with utmost disgust he seized the first snake, in its retreat, and gingerly clutching it between his teeth, while the saliva dripped from his unwilling jaws, shook it frantically until it fairly flew to pieces. The other snake, having for a moment bravely faced Hal and menaced him with its tongue, disappeared.
“Snakes?” spoke Ned, pointing. “Why, just look at them, will you!”
That swamp was fairly swarming with them, all, like the boys, out after frogs. A garter snake considers a young frog a dainty morsel, and some of the snakes were quite lumpy, from the unlucky victims that they had engulfed.
“Well, if this doesn’t beat the dickens!” declared Hal.
Bob could not bring himself to mouthing another of the snakes. He would pretend to pounce upon one, and would quickly spring away, his curling lips indicating his disgust.
Undaunted by the competition, the boys, urged on by the gathering darkness, hastened to collect their frogs and put them in the coffee pail! Bob was of not the slightest assistance. He loathed frogs as much as he did snakes, and actually frothed at them, so intense were his feelings.
“What do you think!” exclaimed Hal, presently. “Here’s a snake that had swallowed a frog, and when I came up he was so scared that he opened his mouth, and the frog scooted out again!”