“Snake never bite um at all,” cried Chicory sturdily. “All swellum and look blue by dis time. Only bite leggum trousers.”
Jack burst into a roar of laughter, and a strange reaction took place, for Chicory was undoubtedly right: the loose trouser-leg had caught the virulent little reptile’s fangs, and averted the danger.
For there was no gainsaying the matter. Jack felt nothing the matter with him, when, if he had been injured, he would have been under the influence of the terribly rapid poison by then, whereas he was ready to jump up and laugh at the mistake.
He did not laugh much, however, for his father’s serious looks checked him. And soon after, when they were alone, Mr Rogers said something to his son about thankfulness for his escape which brought the tears into the boy’s eyes. The next minute, though, father and son joined hands, and no more was said.
It was another warning to be careful, and of the many dangers by which they were surrounded, and the boys promised to temper their daring with more discretion for the future.
They afterwards called that the reptile day, for the number of scaly creatures they saw was prodigious.
“But I want to see one of those tremendously great boa-constrictors,” said Dick, “one of the monsters you read of in books.”
“As big round as the mast of a man-of-war, and as long, eh?” said his father.
“Yes,” said Dick.
“Then I’m afraid, my boy, that you will be disappointed, for from my own experience I think those creatures exist only in the imaginations of writers. I dare say they may grow to thirty feet long, but you may take a boa of eighteen or twenty feet as a monster, and as big as you are likely to see. That was a very large serpent you shot in the valley there.”