When the smoke which had discolored the heavy air drifted away, they saw the serpent still hanging from the limb, pushing his head out this way and that and flashing a scarlet tongue at its enemies.
“You hit him, all right,” Peter said. “Try again.”
After the third shot the body of the serpent hung down from the tree with only a stir of life. It was evident that at least one of the bullets had found the brain.
“It will hang there until it decays,” Peter said. “That tail will never let go. Come on away. It makes me sick.”
“There’s always two where there’s one,” Jimmie said, “and we must move cautiously, for there would be no release from the coils of a snake like that.”
“I thought I heard something moving in there a moment ago,” Peter said, pointing away from the pool. “I’ll go in and see.”
“Don’t you stir,” advised Jimmie. “There’s some one in there. I heard voices. We have been followed all this long way, and the shooting must have located us.”
This was a very natural conclusion, and the boys crept behind the bole of a tree and waited for what seemed to them a long time. Then footsteps were heard, soft, stealthy steps, like those of a man walking in padded stockings. The great leaves of a huge plant with red blossoms moved, and a pair of fierce eyes looked out.
“That’s a panther,” whispered Jimmie.
“A South American jaguar,” Peter corrected. “They eat men when they get desperately hungry.”