| Show HEADLINE HUNTER U Ml lull fi J Ti M Jl J The Jungle Terror By FLOYD GIBBONS FRANK RANK RINI of Brooklyn N. N Y says that all the adventures adventures adventures tures that ever happened to him came while he was a sol sol- sol sol- dier down in the Can Canal Zone Back in 1924 Frank was a corporal corporal corporal cor cor- in the One Hundred and second Ninety-second company C. C A. A C. C stationed at Fort Sherman And on January 15 of that same year he had the exper experience ence that frightened him more than anything else he ever faced in his life It wasn't the fright alone alone it It was the sheer horror th that t went with it Such a horror as only the dank steaming crawling Jungle could produce A party of ot five soldiers set out from the barracks one Sunday afternoon and Frank was among them It was a sort of hunting and exploring trip We were out for anything we could shoot Frank says but our real ambition was to find a primitive tribe of Indians who were said to live in hi that section of orthe the Canal Zone Chopped a Way Yay Through the Jungle We were not allowed to take our rifles That is against army regu regu- lations But we borrowed a few shotguns and each of us had a bolo to cut our way through the jungle undergrowth For the first five miles our route lay on a beaten track along the ocean side but from there on we were in hi virgin territory There our bolos came into play and we had to hack our way through brush and growths that were in hi spots almost Impassable They pushed on through that Jungle but not very far tar It was hard work and it took most of the out of the expedition They grew weary and ond stopped for a rest Frank climbed a coconut tree cut down downa a half hat dozen of the nuts and they drank the Juice to quench their thirst Then they decided to call it a day and start back for the fort The sun was beginning to sink in the sky now and it would never do doto doto doto to be caught in to the jungle overnight They began moving fast but that hot tropic sun seemed to be moving faster laster than they were In order to get out before darkness trapped them they tried a short cut through a alow alow alow low swampy region that led in hi almost a straight line to the fort Big Snake Coiled About Frank Frank was a little ahead of the rest of at them for he knew this particular par par- particular jungle route better than they did He was keeping his eye open for familiar landmarks and had Just spotted one one one-a a shaped peculiarly-shaped mass of ferns erns on the bank of a small creek He had bad just leaped across i the creek when something hit him A soft soU wriggling mass settled down over his shoulders And Frank looked up and almost fainted wh when n he saw the he sinuous form of a huge hage snake coiling itself around him Frank has seen snakes like that in the movies since but those reptiles reptiles reptiles rep rep- tiles didn't act like his did The snakes in hi the picture wrapped themselves themselves them them- selves completely around an animal but Franks Frank's snake kept his tail coiled around the limb of a tree while he encircled Frank with the theE thet E t f 1 Tho The Huge HaCa Snake Coiled Colled Itself Around Him rest of his body The natives told him afterward that in to that way they could squeeze a lot harder since the limb afforded them a good fulcrum But all that Frank found out afterward At the time it happened happened happened hap hap- he wasn't thinking about movie snakes or fulcrums or anything else but the huge reptile that was wrapping itself around him It wasn't the squeezing it was giving me so much as the sheer horror horror hor hor- of having that huge slimy thing so close to me he says Even before the squeezing began I was practically stiff still with fright and re ready dy to pass out from revulsion Everything went black for a moment When the blackness passed my hands had instinctively dropped the bolo I was carrying and clasped themselves around the reptile The snake snake- was so repulsive that I had to shut my eyes but I struggled fiercely as asit asit asit it began to tighten its coils The Reptile Bit Him Too I felt something hot pierce my arm and knew that the head of the reptile had fastened itself on me A boa constrictor can bite bito quite painfully as well as squeeze I never knew it before but I 1 learned it then With that bite I lost all my reason I began stra struggling gling like a madman and suddenly I found my voice and started to yell Meanwhile the reptile had kept its hold on Frank and slowly but surely was squeezing every bit of breath out of at his body He didn't yell more than once or twice before the snake had flattened his lungs so that yelling was impossibly impossible I was considered a pretty strong man about camp he says but this snake was just too much for anything anything any any- thing on two feet teet I was about bout all aU in when I saw the first of at my comrades break through the jungle foliage and come toward me at a dead run After Atter that I remember only dimly what took place I remember them hacking at that snake with their bolos and even shooting at It it but still it wouldn't let go It hung on until they had literally cut it to pieces Finally it gave its last quiver and they untangled me from Its folds But by that time I was out cold and they had to work over me for more than an hour before I was conscious of ot anything or anybody Even when they did bring him to Frank could hardly walk And only part of that was due duc to the tho squeezing he had taken from that monster reptile The rest of It was just Jest plain weakness from the shock of his Ws hideous c. c experience The boys measured that sn snake before they left the spot and It was nineteen feet long and almost four tour inches in to diameter They told Frank around camp that a reptile of that breed and size was quite capable unwilling to believe them of killing a horse and Frank isn't at all My whole body was sore for more than two weeks just from the little dose I got he says and I dont don't think a horse would have felt teU much better after the sa same e sort of treatment i Service |
