“Help!  Help!” I cried with might and main.  No answer came back, but before I could shout a third time the wild-cat uttered a snarl, and began creeping toward me, inch by inch, and lashing the water fiercely with his tail.  Lower and lower sank the branch, until my shoulders were submerged, and still the beast kept advancing.

I continued to shout, but no welcome voice responded, only empty echoes floating back from the hills.

Then I must have given up all hope, for I remember wondering vaguely what had become of Ned, and what they were doing in school, and whether my absence was noticed or not.

The cold water was rippling about my neck now, and the wild-cat was so close that I could note the horrible colors of the glaring eyes, and feel the hot breath in my face.  I wondered how it would feel when those two rows of needle-like teeth met in my flesh; and then, before I could think any more, a deafening report filled my ears, and, through the cloud of smoke that rolled over the creek, the wild-cat bounded high in air, and fell into the water with a loud splash.  That was all I remembered then.  The next thing I knew, I was lying in a grassy hollow, alongside the creek, while Ned and an old farmer bent over me, and threw water in my face.  Ned’s desertion was explained.  He had cut off the bend in the creek by running over the hill, and, accompanied by the farmer, who happened to be down in the woods hunting rabbits, they had arrived just in time to shoot the wild-cat and drag me out of the water.  That was the last time I played truant.  I didn’t lose my share of the shellbarks, for Ned went down early the next morning and got them, but I did lose the chestnut club, and what was worse, in spite of my sore back, I spent a very unpleasant quarter of an hour out in the woodshed, just two days later, and Ned, I am happy to say, passed through the same edifying experience.

A STIRRING INCIDENT.

India is the home of the deadliest serpents and fiercest wild beasts on the globe.  When it is stated that more than twenty thousand persons are killed annually by the snakes and animals of that country, some idea may be formed of its attractions in the way of a residence.  To this should be added the fact that, during certain seasons, the climate is like that of Sahara itself.  For days and nights the thermometer stands above one hundred degrees in the shade and in the city of Madras, unacclimated persons have died at midnight in their beds from apoplexy caused by the appalling temperature.

Among the venomous serpents of India, the cobra di capello holds foremost rank, though it is claimed that a still more deadly reptile has been found in the interior, and I believe the British Museum has one of these terrible creatures, whose bite brings death with the suddenness of the lightning stroke.  However, the cobra has been known to strike two persons in instant succession, proving fatal to both within ten minutes of each other.  It is hard to conceive of any serpent more venomously destructive than this.