CHAPTER XVI

AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER

“Quick with that gun, Bob!” cried Jerry. “Now’s your chance for a shot!”

Bob raised his weapon and fired, but his nervousness, and the sudden terror into which the sight of the reptile threw him, made his aim unsteady. The bullet cut the branches of a tree four feet above the serpent.

“Let me try!” exclaimed the professor. “I think I can get him.”

Bob handed over the gun.

“No, I don’t mean with that,” and the scientist began making a slip noose with a rope.

“What are you going to do?” asked Jerry.

“I’m going to try to capture that snake alive,” answered Mr. Snodgrass. “I recognize it as a valuable specimen of a water reptile, something like the giant boas of the tropics. If I can capture it and ship it up north I will get a good sum from the museum. Steady with the boat and let me get ashore.”

“The snake will kill you!” cried Bob.

“No, they are comparatively harmless,” remarked the scientist. “The only danger is in being caught in their powerful coils. They are not poisonous.”

“Excuse me from that sort of a job,” murmured Ned.

By this time the boat had run ashore, the keel grating on the gravel at the edge of the lake. The professor had made a running noose and held it extended in front of him by means of the boat hook.

“I’ll try and get close enough to the reptile to slip the noose over his head,” he remarked to Jerry. “When I do, send the boat back into the lake and I think we’ll have him just where we want him.”

“Suppose he tackles you?” asked Bob.

“I’m not afraid. I’ve handled snakes before,” announced Uriah Snodgrass confidently.

He cautiously approached the reptile. The big serpent seemed to be searching in the camp for something to eat. It crawled here and there, poking its ugly head into all the openings visible and overturning several boxes.

“It’s a whopper!” cried Ned as a nearer view showed the real size of the reptile.

Meanwhile the professor was approaching closer and closer, holding the dangling noose ready to slip over the serpent’s head. Suddenly the creature raised itself so that the scientist thought he had a chance. He rushed forward with a cry to the boys to be in readiness. Ned shoved the boat off shore and Jerry stood ready to start the motor, while Bob had secured the end of the rope about a cleat.

All at once the snake caught sight of the man advancing with the rope. It must have been aware of the hostile intentions of the professor for it instantly gave vent to a loud hiss and coiled up ready for action.

“Look out, Mr. Snodgrass!” called Jerry. “He’s got an ugly look!”

The professor did not reply. Stepping cautiously he kept on advancing, holding his noose in readiness. It was a brave act but probably only a person who would dare much in the interests of science would have undertaken it.

Suddenly the professor cast his noose. Now either he was not an expert in the use of the lasso, or the snake instinctively knew how to avoid such dangers. At any rate the reptile swayed its head to one side and the rope fell harmlessly to the ground. The next instant the snake had uncoiled and was wiggling straight for the professor.

“Run!” cried Bob.

“Jump!” advised Jerry.

“Hit him with a club!” was Ned’s caution.

The professor did not heed the advice. With a bravery, worthy perhaps of a better cause, he made a spring not away from but right at the snake. He explained afterward that he hoped to grab it around the neck and choke it.

But he missed his aim, and the next moment there was a confused tangle of man and snake on the ground. All the boys could see was a striped tail threshing about while, every now and then, the professor’s legs were visible. He had some sort of a grip, but it was not the right kind, on the reptile.

“We must go ashore and help him! He’ll be killed!” shouted Ned.

“Give me the gun, Bob!” yelled Jerry. “I’ll try a shot.”

“Don’t hit the professor,” cautioned Bob.

Ned leaped ashore, followed by his companions who waded through the intervening shallow water. They ran toward where the professor was still struggling with the snake. But, by the time they arrived the battle was over. Or, rather, it was a retreat. The snake, probably the worst scared reptile in Florida at that moment, was headed for the water, and, as the professor was stretched out on his back, where a movement of the strong folds had thrown him the snake glided into the lake and disappeared amid a series of ripples.

“There he goes!” cried Bob, while Jerry sent several bullets from the magazine rifle after it. But it was too late. The snake got away unharmed.

“Too bad I missed him,” remarked the professor as he got up and brushed the dirt from his clothes. “It would have been a valuable specimen.”

“Lucky it didn’t crush you to death,” said Jerry. “It was a monster.”

“I’ve seen larger ones,” observed Mr. Snodgrass. “I must make a note of this. I will write a scientific paper about it.”

Fortunately the travelers had returned to camp before the snake had time to do much damage. Some fresh fish, which the boys depended on for their meal, were eaten, and the place was in confusion from the investigations of the reptile.

“I am glad he didn’t take it into his head to come in the night,” remarked Bob. “He’d have scared us all to death.”

Matters were soon straightened out, the professor proceeding to note down facts about the reptile as calmly as though he had not been in danger of serious injury, if not death, from the encounter.

“If I could only have gotten hold of him around the neck,” he said, “I’d have him a captive now.”

“It’s just as well,” remarked Ned. “He would have been unhandy to cart around, and, if you got your prize butterfly the snake might have eaten him up.”

“That’s so,” admitted the scientist, finding some consolation in this thought.

It was on the afternoon of the next day when, as they were in the boat, making their way along the eastern shore of the lake, that they approached a small settlement.

“Here’s civilization,” remarked Jerry as he saw the cluster of houses. “I didn’t suppose any one lived here.”

“Oh, there are several fruit growers in this vicinity,” replied the professor, “but after this I guess we’ll find the lake lonesome enough for we’ll soon be among the everglades.”

They went ashore as they needed some supplies and gasoline. While their order was being filled at the village store the boys strolled out a distance into the country.

“We’ll be back in a little while, professor,” remarked Jerry, as the scientist elected to remain in the store, having caught sight of a curious kind of black bug on the wall.

The village was so small that the boys had soon passed its confines. They walked along a little stream and saw, just ahead of them, two figures. As they approached nearer they could hear persons in dispute.

“Seems to me as if I had heard that one voice somewhere before,” remarked Ned.

“It does sound familiar,” agreed Jerry.

The person with his back to the boys was saying:

“I tell you this isn’t my land. I know what I’m talking about. You’re in possession of my cocoanut grove, and I want it! I didn’t buy this old swamp!” and the figure turned and pointed to a morass on the edge of which he was standing.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” exclaimed the other, a man. “I’ve owned this cocoanut grove for years. You’ve been swindled, that’s what’s the matter.”

“I tell you I’m going to have my rights!” retorted the other. Then he turned and the three motor boat boys, with one accord exclaimed:

“Noddy Nixon!”