The plants were about eight feet tall, three feet across the top, and the flap or covering was raised about two feet.  They were nodding and swaying in the wind on their short stems.

“He’s headed right for one of them!” Mr. Henderson exclaimed.  “I hope he’ll not fall into one of the openings.”

“Is there any danger?” asked Mark.

“I’m afraid there is,” the inventor added.  “Those plants are a variety of the well-known pitcher plant, or fly-trap, as they are sometimes called.  In tropical countries they grow to a large size, but nothing like these.  They are filled, in the cup, with a sort of sticky, sweet mixture, and this attracts insects.  When one enters the cup the top flap folds over, and the hapless insect is caught there.  The plant actually devours it, nature providing a sort of vegetable digestive apparatus.  These giant plants are the same, and they seem large enough to take in a man, to say nothing of Jack!”

With anxious faces the adventurers turned to watch the fate of their comrade.  Jack was slipping, sliding and rolling down the hill.  He could not seem to stop, though he was making desperate efforts to do so.  He was headed straight for one of the largest of the terrible plants.

In vain, as he saw what was in front of him, did he try to change the course of his involuntary voyage.  Over and over he rolled, until, at length, he struck a little grassy hummock, bounced into the air, and right into the opening of a monster pitcher plant.

“It has him!” cried Mark.  “We must save him!  Come on everyone!”

He raced down the hill, while the others came closely after him.  They reached the plant into which Jack had bounced.  The flap, or top piece, had closed down, tightly over the unfortunate boy.

“Quick!  We must save him or he will be smothered to death or drowned in the liquid the cup contains!” Mr. Henderson exclaimed.  “Attack the plant with anything you can find!”

“Let’s cut through the side of the flower-cup!” suggested Mark.  “That seems softer than the stem.”

His idea was quickly put into operation.  Andy’s long hunting knife came in very handy.  While the sides of the long natural cup were tough, the knife made an impression on them, and, soon, a small door or opening had been cut in the side of the pitcher plant, large enough to enable a human body to pass through.

When the last fibre had been severed by Andy, who was chosen to wield the knife because of his long practice as a hunter, there was a sudden commotion within the plant.  Then a dark object, dripping water, made a spring and landed almost at the feet of the professor.

It was Jack, and a sorry sight he presented.  He was covered from head to foot with some sticky substance, which dripped from all over him.

With hasty movements he cleared the stuff from his eyes and mouth, and spluttered: 

“It’s a good thing you cut me out when you did.  I couldn’t have held on much longer!”