powerful hands; but just as they had taken a firm hold
and were about to put their plan into action, a tremendous thrill seemed
to run from tail to head of the reptile as an eddy whirled up the water,
and they let go and sprang away.

"Ah, catch hold again," cried Brace, dropping his gun and darting at the
serpent, but before he could reach it the movement had become quicker,
and they had the mortification of seeing their prize pass steadily
backward under the bushes, and in spite of the renewed efforts of the
men the half-crushed head reached the water, gliding down out of sight,
and staining the surface with blood.

"Yah!" yelled the man nearest to the water, and he flung himself back
against his mates, who could not for a moment tell what had terrified
him.

On approaching the water's edge where it flowed along dark and deep
beneath the pendent boughs they heard a wallow and a splash, and the
lookers-on had a startled glance at a great horny, muddied head and a
pair of tooth-serrated gaping jaws, which rose above the surface and
were plunged again into the bloodstained water, to disappear, but to be
followed by a great gnarled-bark back and a long tail which lashed the
water before it passed out of sight.

Before another word could be uttered the water beneath the boughs seemed
to boil up in eddies as if it were being churned from below, and during
a brief space the horrified lookers-on had a glimpse or two of the
slowly twining and writhing body of the serpent, as it rose to the
surface from time to time, while over and under enemies were dragging at
it from all directions.

"Well, if that isn't a rum un, I'm a Dutchman," cried the second mate,
as they watched the tremendous struggle going on. It gradually receded
farther from the bank and the combatants were carried down stream by the
current. "I never saw anything like that but once before."

"Well, I never saw it once," said the American; while Brace was silent,
standing peering through the dipping boughs so as not to lose an atom of
what was going on. "Where was yours?"

"At home in our river," said the mate. "I was lying on my chest with my
hand over the side of the camp-shedding, as we called the boards put to
keep up the river-bank by the weir. I was looking down through the
clear water at a shoal of little perch playing about, waiting for
anything that might be swept over the weir, when a big earth-worm came
down and the perch all went for it to