Jud had become uneasy at Will's long absence and had tracked him to the entrance of the trap just as the army-ants reached it. His shouts had brought the rest, and it was Hen Pine who, with his machete, had cut the supple liana and knotted the noose which had reached Will just in time. Directed by Jud, his rescuers hauled on the vine so vigorously that the boy shot out of the pit and was dragged several yards along the ground before they knew that he was safe.
Jud hurried to help him up, but promptly did a most creditable performance in the standing-back broad-jump.
"Bring your machete here, quick!" he shouted to Hen; "a bushmaster's got the kid!"
"No," corrected Will, scrambling to his feet with some difficulty and waving off Hen with his unoccupied hand, "the kid's got a bushmaster."
Professor Amandus Ditson was delighted to his heart's core.
"That is the finest specimen of the Lachesis mutus," he remarked, as he unwound the rough coils from Will's waist, "that has ever been reported. Whatever happens now," he went on, relieving Will of his burden, "the trip is an unqualified success."
"The man's easily satisfied," murmured Jud, watching from a safe distance the professor grip the snake by the back of its neck and push it foot by foot into a long snake-bag which he always carried for possible specimens. When at last the bag, filled with snake, was tied tightly, it looked much like a long, knobby Christmas-stocking. The professor swung it carelessly over his shoulder like a blanket-roll.
"No snake ever bites through cloth," he remarked reassuringly. "Now for the Inca Emerald!"