A Novel Defense

by W. Thomson

“What has become of Tom Grant?” said the leader of our party as we, one after another, roused up after a long midday sleep.

“Gone off, as usual, on a beetle and butterfly hunt, I suppose,” replied Tom’s chum, a young fellow named Austin.

“Well, it was a mighty foolish thing to do in these parts, without his rifle, and I see he has left that behind. When did he go?” rejoined the captain.

“Don’t know, Cap, but I guess he never took a snooze at all. I waked up first of the crowd, and he was gone then,” Austin somewhat anxiously answered.

Charlie Blake, whom we had elected captain of the expedition, out of deference to his longer experience in the country, turned to the party, with a very serious expression on his handsome face, and said:

“Boys, it is now two o’clock. We’ve been sleeping for over an hour and a half, and Grant may have been gone all that time. He is quite unarmed, and the brakes and thickets about here are full of jaguars, panthers, palmeats and wild-hogs; and, worst of all, the terrible tree-boa is by no means rare. Most of these creatures lie close hidden during the heat of the day, but Tom is just as likely as not to run right into their lairs, or, by his single presence, tempt some of them from cover, and if he does— Well, we had better lose no time in hunting him up.”

We were a party of six: five of us young fellows, from Boston, who had lately graduated and were now, before settling down to the serious business of life, spending a few months in Brazil, on a botanizing, entomological and hunting trip. The sixth man, Charlie Blake, was a thirty-year-old New Yorker, whom we had fortunately run against at Valverde, where he had been for some time engaged in trade, and who had very kindly consented to join us for a week or two, thus supplying to the… Read More