"The animals won't come near the fire," Frank said. "We may as well remain here and see the menagerie."
Directly it seemed to the excited lads that all the wild animals in South America were assembled about their signal. Harry declared that he heard the call of the red wolf, the scream of the tiger cat, the wail of the puma, the vicious snarling of the wild dog.
While the boys listened to the chorus their efforts to attract the attention of the aeroplane had produced, there came into the discord another sound—the hissing of a monster serpent. Heretofore the boys had little to do with Brazilian forms of animal life, for they had kept near the middle of the main stream of the Amazon, and also about in the center of the Madeira and the much smaller Beni, which was only a creek when compared with the other rivers.
Occasionally they had seen a monster cayman nosing against the current, and at times their progress had been retarded by turtles, but they had never before seen anything like this. Their fire had certainly brought out a combination in nature which would have been decidedly interesting if it hadn't been so threatening.
"Me for the boat!" Jack said, with a shiver, as the serpent launched his head and a third of his body from the tree and swept about in widening circles. "I never could endure snakes!"
"I'm going to take a shot at it," Frank said. "I'd like to see him take a tumble into the fire."
"Better let him alone," Harry advised.
Frank was about to fire when Jack caught his arm and held up his hand in a listening attitude.
"What is it?" Frank asked.
"Human voices!" was the quick reply.