The trackers are at fault, and no wonder, yet not three hundred yards away Frank lies at the bottom of a pit, into which he had stumbled, and pulled after him the large withered branch of a mango-tree, and his rifle had gone off as he fell. He hears his friends firing to attract his attention, he cannot reach his rifle to reply. But there adown the wind at last comes a thrice-welcome shout, “Coo-ee-ee!” He tries to answer, but the branch lies across his chest, and he can hardly breathe. “Coo-ee-ee! Coo-ee-ee!” They hear his muffled tones at last; they look no more for track nor trail. Forward they dash, holding the torches high over head. “Coo-oo-ee!” A gigantic leopard rises from his lair, but with a startled yell disappears in a moment in the darkness. Was that a huge python coiled round the tree? If it was he had no time to strike, so quickly do they speed along. “Coo-ee-ee!” They are close at hand now, and now they are at the very mouth of the pit, and Frank can talk to them and tell them how he is trapped.
Chisholm was so glad to see his friend once more safe and alive, that he forgot entirely that he had resolved to scold him properly for his rashness and folly. But Frank never afterwards cared to have any allusion made to his night ramble, and resented almost warmly Fred Freeman’s attempt to dub him the “somnambulist.”
Chapter Fourteen.
Adventure with a Python—Moondah’s House—“The Tiger! The Tiger!”—Panthers—Hunting with the Cheetah—The Panther and the Boar.
“Do you really think there are pythons or boa constrictors in the forest?” asked Frank next day at dinner.
“I haven’t a doubt of it,” replied Lyell. “At the same time I cannot quite swallow all the tracker says about the enormity of the serpent he saw when following up your trail in the woods.”