ce over we found that
rattlesnakes had been attracted by the fire and had taken possession of
quarters in our tent, for which, as they viciously showed fight, they
were condemned to death and executed.

One morning, too, on waking, I caught sight of peculiar marks on the
loose dry sand, a smooth deep furrow having been made, to which I drew
my uncle's attention.

"We ought to hunt out the creature which made that, Nat," said my uncle.
"Rather an unpleasant neighbour to have. Why, the fellow that marked
that trail must be a good eighteen feet long."

It, too, suffered for its temerity, for it came again, and was seen by
Pete on awaking in the morning, when he cautiously drew my attention to
the monster's presence near the fire.

The next minute a couple of shots from my double gun rang out, and the
huge serpent was writhing and twining among the bushes, and beating them
flat by blows from its powerful tail.

Cross skinned it when it was dead, saying that he must have it for a
curiosity if we did not, and probably it stretched a little in the
process, for it proved to be a python, twenty feet in length and
enormously thick.

It was the very next day when we were about to move, the visit of the
python and the possibility of one from its mate having decided our
immediate change, after a final tramp round in search of the birds we
wanted.

But we had no more luck than usual. We could have shot plenty of
specimens, but not those we sought, and we were nearing our camp when
all at once what I took to be a pigeon dashed out of a tree, and meaning
it for a roast, my gun flew to my shoulder, I fired hastily, and the
bird fell.

"Uncle!" I cried, as I picked it out dead from among a clump of ferns.

"A quetzal!" shouted my uncle excitedly, for it was a scarlet-breasted
bird, with back and wing, coverts of a glorious golden-green.

"But you said that they had tails three or four feet long."

"Yes," said my uncle; "the kind I want to find have, while this is only
short; but here is proof that we are working in the right direction."

"Then we must stop here, uncle," I cried.

"Yes, Nat, it would be madness to leave. We must wait till the right
ones come."

That bird's wonderfully oily and tender skin was carefully stripped off
in the evening, and it had a drying box all to itself, one made
expressly by Cross, who confided to me that it was the finest bird he
had ever seen.

"Some of they humming-birds is hands