For that jungle abounded in enemies, as the boy had had occasion to know. At any moment a boa constrictor might drop like a flash from a tree above and seek to enfold him in its crushing coils. A turn of the trail might bring him face to face with a crouching jaguar. Or a cooanaradi, deadliest of all venomous snakes, might launch itself from the underbrush and inject its poison into his veins.