After they had fairly gorged themselves on fruit, they set out to look for a spring. They were not long in finding it and Billy Barnes, dipper in hand, started in to fill the keg. He had ladled out a few dipperfuls when he started back with a yell. The others, who had been roaming about in the vicinity, hurried back and found the reporter gazing petrified at a huge cotton mouth moccassin. Frank, who had one of the sixteen gauge guns with him, quickly despatched the creature, which was about three feet long.
“Ugh, what a monster,” exclaimed Lathrop, as he gazed at the ugly, dirty-brown colored body.
“He is a pretty sizeable reptile and that’s a fact,” remarked Frank, “But what would you say to a serpent twenty feet long?”
The others looked at him incredulously.
“Twenty feet long—Oh come, Frank,” laughed Billy. “That sounds like the fish that got away.”
“Lieutenant Willoughby, who explored the Everglades in 1897, reports that he heard from Indians and believed himself that in the southern portions of the Everglades there are snakes bigger than any known species,” replied Frank, “his guide killed a reptile marked with longitudinal stripes,—but otherwise like a rattlesnake,—which measured nine feet from tip to tip.”
“Well, I don’t want to be around when any such creatures as that are about,” said Lathrop.
“I’m with you there,” cried Billy, “snake stories are all right in print but I don’t want to figure in any of them.”
“Come on, boys,—volunteers to get supper,” cried Frank, after the group had strolled back to the boat landing,—all hands taking turn at packing the water keg.
“Supper?” cried the others.