"Snakes, snakes, snakes!" he complained. "They live in the springs and pop up beside the paths and drop on you out of trees. Now they're beginnin' to creep out of the water to kill us off in our sleep. What a country!"
"It's the abundance of reptile life which makes South America so interesting and attractive," returned Professor Ditson, severely.
It was Pinto who prevented the inevitable and heated discussion between the elders of the party.
"Down where I come from," he said, "lives a big water-snake many times larger than this one, called the Guardian of the River. He at least seventy-five feet long. We feed him goats every week. My grandfather and his grandfather's grandfather knew him. Once," went on Pinto, "I found him coiled up beside the river in such a big heap that I couldn't see over the top of the coils."
"I don't know which is the worse," murmured Jud to Will, "seein' the snakes which are or hearin' about the snakes which ain't. Between the two, I'm gettin' all wore out."
Then Pinto went back again to his predictions about the river they were on.
"This river," he said, "is not called the River of Death for nothing. The old men of my tribe say that always dangers come here by threes. One is passed, but two more are yet to come. Never, Master, should we have entered this river by night."
"Yes," chimed in Hen, "when I heered that ol' witch-owl I says to myself, 'Hen Pine, there'll be somethin' bad a-doin' soon.'"
"You talk like a couple of superstitious old women," returned Professor Ditson, irritably.
"You wait," replied the Indian, stubbornly; "two more evils yet to come."