“How are you going to do it?” asked the professor.

“I’ll show you,” replied Andy.  He bound the sticks and paper together with wisps of grass and then, when it was so hot he could hardly hold it longer, he ran as close as he dared to the snake-tree and tossed the torch at the foot of it.

The blazing bundle fell among some damp leaves and grass, as Andy had intended it should, and soon a dense smoke arose, pouring straight up through the branches of the animal-tree, the limbs of which were gathered in a knot about the half-unconscious form of the boy.

For a few minutes they all waited anxiously.  Would Andy’s trick succeed?  Had the terrible tree not already squeezed the life from Jack?

But, while they watched, there seemed to come a change over the tree.  The snake-like arms waved less and less.  They seemed to straighten out, as though deprived of power by the smoke which was now so dense as to hide Jack from sight.  Then the arms suddenly relaxed and something rolled from them and fell to the ground.  With a quick movement Andy darted in, crawling on his hands and knees beneath the limbs, and brought Jack out.  The boy was white and his eyes were closed.

“Get some water!” cried the old hunter.

Mark ran toward a stream a little distance away.  He brought some of the curiously thick liquid in his hat, and while Andy held the boy the professor sprinkled some of the drops on his face, and forced some between his lips.  In a little while Jack’s eyes slowly opened.

“Don’t let it eat me!” he begged.

“You’re all right now,” said Andy heartily.  “Not a bit harmed, Jack.  But,” he added in a low tone, “it was a close call.”

A few whiffs from a bottle of ammonia the professor carried soon brought Jack’s color back.

“Do you feel better now?” asked Mark.

“I guess so.  Yes, I’m all right,” replied Jack, struggling to his feet.  “What happened?  Feels as if I had been tied up with a lot of rope.”

“That’s about what you were,” Andy replied, “only it was the worst kind of rope I ever saw.  Those snake-trees are terrible things.  I’ve read of ’em, but I never saw one before.  The book that told of them says they squeeze their victims to death just as a snake does.  The only way to do is to make some smoke and fire at the bottom.  This sort of kills the branches or makes them stupid and they let go.  The trees are half animal, and awful things.  I hope we don’t meet with any more.”

“Same here,” added Jack fervently, as he grasped Andy’s hand, and thanked him for saving his life.

“Do you think you can go on, or shall we return to the ship’?” the professor asked.

“Oh I can trail along, if you move a little slowly,” Jack replied.  “I’m a bit stiff, that’s all.”

So they resumed their journey.  They had gone, perhaps, three miles when Washington, who was in the lead, suddenly stopped and called: