Page:The Rover Boys in Southern Waters.djvu/79

Rh some bushes, hurled it at the object, hitting it directly in the center. Up came an ugly-looking head, the object whipped around swiftly, and the next instant the boys found themselves confronted by a swamp snake all of six feet long and as thick as a man's wrist!

"Mine cracious!" burst from Hans' lips. "It vos a snake annahow! Look out! he vill eat us up alife!"

"We must get out of here!" cried Sam. "Oh, Tom, why didn't you leave it alone?"

"I didn't really think it was a snake," answered the fun-loving Rover. "Somebody shoot it!"

Queer as it was, nobody had thought to use his pistol, but as Tom spoke Dick pointed his weapon at the snake, that was crawling rapidly over the tree roots towards them. The puff of smoke was followed by a writhing of the reptile, and they saw that it had been hit although not fatally wounded.

"Wait, I'll give him another shot!" cried Sam, who now had his pistol out, and as the head of the snake came up over a tree root, the youngest Rover fired point-blank. His aim was true, and the head of the snake went down, and the body whirled this way and that in its death agonies.

"Is he—he dead?" faltered Tom.

"Next door to it," answered Harold Bird.