Now the shoe seemed to be
on the other foot.
Even as he looked hastily up, startled by these sudden cries, Frank felt
his arm seized in a frenzied clutch, and himself jerked backward.
"What is it, Andy? Here, hold on, let my arm free, and tell me!" he
exclaimed.
"Look there; and you were going to walk right up against it! Oh! Frank,
what a horrible monster!" Andy replied, in trembling tones, as he strove
to point toward something that he had seen just in the nick of time.
"Whew! I should say you were right! Ain't he a dandy, though? And if I
saw him at all, I thought it was a great big vine hanging from that
tree! Ugh! look at him stretch his mouth, would you? Andy, thanks to
your sharp eyes I'm here, instead of in his slimy folds. I guess he
could crush an ox. They say nothing can stand the pressure, once they
get a couple of folds around."
"Is it a python?" gasped Andy, his horrified eyes glued on the spectacle
of the slightly swaying ten feet of snake that hung from the limb of a
great tree, in part as thick as Frank's thigh.
"About the same thing," replied Frank. "Down here they call them
anacondas, and in other parts of the world they're boa-constrictors. I
guess the whole bunch belongs to the same family of squeezers. But that
fellow is in our way."
"Well, yes, if you're still determined to run the aeroplane across lots
toward this side of the opening," Andy remarked with a shudder.
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