"Well, we're up; I suppose we may as well stay up," said Ned, stretching and yawning. "My, but I did sleep good!"
They all agreed that the night's sleep had been a restful one. They dressed, had breakfast, and, in spite of the entreaties of the landlord to stay a few days, they were soon on the road in the automobile.
"I'm glad to know we are on the right path," said the professor, after several miles had been covered. "I only hope that old Mexican was not joking with us."
"What was that he said about turning to the left?" asked Ned.
"We are to turn when we come to the place where the laughing monkey is," said Bob.
"Serpent was what he said," observed Jerry. "The laughing serpent. I wonder what that can be. I never saw a snake laugh."
"It might be a figure of speech, or he may have meant there is a stone image carved in that design set up to mark a road," spoke the professor. "However, we shall see."
Dinner was eaten in a little glade beside a small brook, where some fish were caught. Then, while the boys stretched out on the grass, the professor, who was never idle, took a small rifle and said he would go into the forest and see if he could not get a few specimens.
"I will," replied the naturalist, remembering his former experience.
About an hour later, when Jerry was just beginning to think it was time to start off, the stillness of the forest was broken by a terrible and blood-curdling yell.
"There are no tigers here," said Jerry. "But it's some wild beast!"
The yell was repeated. Then came a crashing of the underbrush, followed by a wild call for help.
"That's the professor!" cried Jerry, seizing his rifle.
The boys crashed through the bushes and under the low branches of trees in the direction of the professor's voice. They could hear him more plainly now.
"Help! Help! Come quick!" the naturalist cried.
The sight that met the boys' eyes when they came out into a little clearing of the forest was at once calculated to amuse and alarm them. They saw the professor clinging to the tail of a mountain lion, the beast being suspended over a low tree-limb, with the naturalist hanging on one side of the branch and the animal on the other, the brute in the air and the professor on the ground.