The boys, looking up, descried the snake winding its sinuous way along a lateral bough that grew up above the forks. The disturbed and excited snake, having reached the limb, wound its course till it reached a clump of bushy branches on the limb's extremity. On this it coiled itself, save the head and neck, which stood erect in vigilant attitude.
"Oh, crikey! was that there on—in the body's—the woman's body?"
"Yes, Jimmy; right in the blanket on her breast. 'Twas that brute moving under the blanket that I thought was her breathing. Oh, my!" again exclaimed the youth, with a shudder, as he thought of the imminence of the danger which confronted him a moment before.
"Is—it—her—dead, Joe?" asked Tom after an interval of silence.
"No doubt of it, boys."
"Wonder if the snake bit her?"
"May have. Anyway the poor thing is dead all right."
"What's bes' thing to do now?"
"W-e-ll, I d-o-n't know——"
Again that shrill wailing cry!