As usual, Captain Sprowl was the cook, with Dick as first aide, otherwise deputy assistant and bottle-washer in ordinary.

“What’s the matter with our strolling off and seeing if we can’t get a shot at something?” suggested Jack to Tom.

“Suits me first rate,” was the response. “Come on.”

The two lads shouldered their rifles and made off into the woods, which were not particularly thick in the vicinity of the open space where they had alighted. As they had not much time at their disposal the boys were ready to fire at the first thing they saw that looked edible. Peering intently about they made their way forward.

Suddenly there was a rush and scramble in a thicket ahead of them and some small creatures rushed out, snorting and grunting.

Jack’s rifle was at his shoulder like a flash. He fired two shots and Tom followed with another.

Having fired, they ran forward quickly, and found that two small animals that looked like miniature pigs had fallen before their rifles. They were indeed a variety of wild swine common enough in that district, and weighed about forty or fifty pounds apiece.

Highly delighted with the results of their marksmanship, the boys set out to return to camp. Tom carried one of the slain porkers while Jack shouldered the other.

“Pork chops for dinner, all right,” chuckled Tom, who was slightly in advance. “I guess——”

Jack, who was a few paces behind, and from whom Tom was temporarily hidden, noticed the abrupt breaking off of Tom’s speech.

“Well, go on,” he admonished. “I’m listening. I——”

“Jack! Jack! Come quick!”

The cry rang through the trees sharply. Jack’s heart gave a mighty bound. Tom’s shout was vibrant with terror. Could he have encountered a band of Indians? Some wild beast?

Dropping his pig, Jack saw to the mechanism of his rifle and plunged forward. The next instant he came to a standstill, literally petrified with horror.

Tom had stumbled over a root and had fallen prone. That much was evident. He was just scrambling to his feet as Jack came on the scene, but already he had perceived the same object that had caused Jack to stop short in his tracks with a sharp intake of his breath and a face that was white as ashes.

Looking upward the boy saw what at first appeared to be a supple highly-colored liana swinging and swaying from the upper branches of a fair-sized mango tree. But this “liana” as Jack had for an instant deemed it, he saw, at almost the same instant, was instinct with life!

Instead of the moving object being part of the tree, or a creeper dependent from it, its supple, cylindrical body and glittering scales showed it to be a monster serpent.

It was an anaconda, the giant boa-constrictor of the Brazilian forests, which has been known to attain the enormous length of forty feet. The monster hanging above Tom was of huge dimensions. At least fifteen feet of its scaly body hung from the tree. How much more was wrapped about the upper branches in sinuous coils, Jack could only guess.

As he gazed on Tom’s predicament his blood fairly congealed in his veins. He felt incapable of action. As if in a dream he saw Tom struggling to rise from the ground and escape the pendent terror above him. But as he moved Jack saw, to his horror, that the anaconda slowly loosened its upper coils and hung lower.

So swiftly, yet so insensibly did it manage its gliding movements, that Jack had hardly taken in the details of the alarming scene before him when the monstrous creature’s head had reached the level of the ground.

With its jaws agape and forked tongue darting, the reptile began slowly oscillating as if trying its range.

“Run, Tom! Run!” screamed Jack, aroused to life at last.

But Tom appeared to be incapable of motion. He paused on his hands and knees as he struggled to his feet and remained in this posture. The horror of his situation appeared to deprive him of the power of locomotion.

Determined to make an effort to save Tom even though he risked his comrade’s life in so doing, Jack raised his rifle and fired. But his hands shook so that his aim was faulty and the bullet flew wide.

But the bullet had one effect, and that the one that Jack least desired. It appeared to arouse the great snake from its deliberate movements.

With a swift, almost imperceptible motion, its head swept forward, and several feet of its coils loosened simultaneously from above. In another instant Jack, almost fainting from terror, saw Tom in the folds of the gigantic reptile. His comrade’s screams of deadly fear rang in Jack’s ears as he gazed on the dreadful drama being enacted before his eyes.

But this inertness only lasted for an instant. Suddenly his mind seemed to clear and he saw with startling distinctness what he must do. Rushing forward he held the rifle as close to the serpent as he dared, and fired.

The bullet took effect in the creature’s body just behind the head and caused it to loosen its folds for an instant with a furious hiss. Its hideous head lunged forward at this new enemy.

Hardly knowing what he did, Jack fired again and again. The automatic spat bullets in a continuous stream. After the magazine was exhausted, the frenzied boy still pressed the trigger. But there was no need for further shooting. The bullets had wiped out all semblance to a head, and the decapitated monster was lashing and writhing its entire length on the ground, for with Jack’s first bullet it had relinquished its grip on the boughs above.

Tom retained his senses long enough to scramble out of the deadly folds of the reptile, and then, staggering a few paces, he toppled over. As for Jack, shouting excitedly, he set upon the body of the great snake and in a frenzy beat it with all his might with the butt of his rifle.

He was conscious of a fierce desire to wipe the creature’s carcass from the face of the earth. It was at this juncture that Captain Sprowl, the professor and Mr. Chadwick came running up, much alarmed over the furious shooting they had heard.

A glance showed what had occurred, and Jack, half sobbing, told the story while Mr. Chadwick brought Tom back to consciousness. After an examination it proved that there was not much harm done beyond a terrible fright. Tom’s body was bruised and sore, however, for the big snake, as is the manner of his species, had begun to crush the boy preparatory to swallowing him, when Jack’s lucky shot turned the tables.

When Tom was somewhat recovered, Professor Von Dinkelspeil drew out a pocket tape measure and began to measure the great carcass which now lay still and cold. He found that the anaconda that had come so near to proving Tom’s end was thirty-two feet in length.

“Vun of der piggest I ever heardt of,” he declared, “although Bates, der English naturalist, says dot he heard of anacondas forty feet long, in der stomach of vun of vich de men who killed idt found a horse de snake hadt ge-swallowed.”

“Well, ‘all’s well that ends well,’ as the poet says,” quoth Captain Sprowl, “but the ugly customer yonder might have made an end of Tom, if it hadn’t been for Jack here. Shake, boy, I’m proud of you. You didn’t lose your nerve for a minute.”

“Didn’t I?” rejoined Jack with an odd smile.

At this juncture, a sudden cry from Dick made them all look round.

“The ants! Millions of ‘em!” he cried. “They’re coming this way!”

“Marching ants!” exclaimed the professor. “Annudder of der vunders of de Prazilian forests. Dey must be coming after de carcass off der snake.”

“Say, they’re covering the whole earth!” roared Dick. “Creeping carnations of Connecticut, I never saw such a sight!”

“Look!” cried Jack suddenly pointing in the other direction from that to which Dick was excitedly drawing attention. “There come some more of them!”

Advancing toward them was what at first sight appeared like a vast undulating carpet of dark brown color. It was about five feet in width and came onward through the forest like a coffee-colored river.

“Sacred cod-fish!” exclaimed Captain Sprowl. “I’ve got a notion that we’d better be doing something pretty quick.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jack, for there was an odd intonation in the captain’s voice.

“Getting out of here, for instance,” exclaimed the captain. “Each of them marching ants is two inches long and is armed with nippers like a pair of pincers. They are coming after the dead body of that snake, I guess, or they may only be out on the war-path as their custom is sometimes. But in any case, we’d better go away from this part of the woods, for if we don’t they’ll overflow us like Noah’s flood.”