“Ugh!” exclaimed Teddy. “It isn’t the thing I’d choose for a bosom friend. I’m more particular about my company.”
“It’s lucky your camel saw it when he did,” remarked the professor. “The snake would surely have bitten him as he passed. They’re the more dangerous because they can scarcely be detected in the sand. A great many horses and camels are killed by them in Egypt every year.”
The suggestion by Abdul that the snakes usually traveled in pairs was sufficient to make the travelers mount in a hurry. But the mate of the dead snake, if it were in the vicinity, failed to make itself seen or felt, and they went on unmolested, though keeping a sharp lookout on the sands ahead.
“I suppose, Don, a snake more or less is nothing in your young life, after all you killed or captured in Brazil,” remarked Teddy, with a laugh.
“That’s one case where familiarity hasn’t bred contempt,” answered Don. “It was in Brazil that I learned to respect them, sometimes to run from them, as in the case of the cooanaradi.”
“Call it coon and let it go at that,” laughed Teddy. “Why did it chase you?”
“Because it loved me and couldn’t bear to part with me,” answered Don dryly. “It was a big twelve-footer and fairly soaking with poison. The only thing I had with me was a machete. I swung just as it overtook and sprang for me, and by good luck sliced its head from its body. More than once since then I’ve dreamed that it was chasing me.”
They were preparing to pitch their tents for the midday rest when a cloud of dust appeared on the horizon ahead of them.
In the desert every man is an enemy until he is found to be a friend, and the camping was deferred, the party remaining on their camels while they awaited the figures that soon detached themselves from the dust and rapidly became larger.
“Get your rifles ready,” commanded the captain. “We’ll have to see who these fellows are. They may be Bedouins out on a raid, or they may be peaceful traders. We’ll soon know.”