The flight of queen bees and their swarms, the call to arms in a sleeping camp creates somewhat the commotion that the news of the bushmaster aroused with us. For he is really what his name implies. What the elephant is to the African jungles and the buffalo to Malaysia, this serpent is to the Guiana wilderness. He fears nothing--save one thing, hunting ants, before which all the world flees. And this was the first bushmaster of the rainy season. Nupee had been left to mount guard over the serpent which had been found near the trogon tree. Already the light was failing; so we walked rapidly with gun, snake-pole and canvas bag. Parrakeets hurtled bamboowards to roost; doves scurried off and small rails flew from our path and flopped into the reeds. Our route led from the open compound of Kalacoon, through the freshly cut Convict Trail, toward the edge of the high bush, and we did not slacken speed until we were in the dim light which filtered through the western branches. At the top of the slope we heard a yell--a veritable Red Indian yell--and there our Akawai hunter was dancing excitedly about, shouting to us to come on. "Snake, he move! Snake, he move!" We arrived panting, and he tremblingly led me along a fallen tree and pointed to the dead leaves. I well knew the color and pattern of the bushmaster. I had had them brought to me dead and had killed them myself, and I had seen them in their cage behind glass. But now, though I was thinking bushmaster and looking bushmaster, my eyes insisted on registering dead leaves. Eager as I was to begin operations before darkness closed down, it was a full three minutes before I could honestly say, "This is leaf; that is snake." The pattern and pigment of the cunningly arranged coils were that of the jungle floor, anywhere; a design of dead leaves, reddish-yellow, pinkish, dark-brown, etched with mold, fungus and decay, and with all the shadows and high lights which the heaped-up plant tissues throw upon one another. In the center of this dread plaque, this reptilian mirage, silent and motionless, rested the head. I knew it was triangular and flattened, because I had dissected such heads in times past, but now my senses revealed to me only an irregularity in the contour, a central focus in this jungle mat, the unraveling of which spelt death. It was a big snake, seven or eight feet long, and heavy bodied--by no means a one-man job. Again we carefully examined the screw-eyes on the pole, and each looked behind for a possible line of escape. I quickly formed my method of attack. Nupee was sent to cut forked sticks, but his enthusiasm at having work to do away from the scene of immediate conflict was so sincere that he vanished altogether and returned with the sticks only when our shouts announced the end of the struggle. An Indian will smilingly undergo any physical hardship, and he will face any creature in the jungle, except the bushmaster.