aring eyes and wagging
tail, as if calculating the mode of attack. Its lips were red--stained
with the blood of the ant-eaters--and this added to the hideousness of
its appearance. But it needed not that, for it was hideous enough at
any time.

Leon kept his eyes upon it, every moment expecting it to spring up the
tree. All at once he saw it give a sudden start, and at the same
instant he heard a hissing noise, as if something passed rapidly through
the air. Ha! something sticking in the body of the puma! It is an
arrow,--a poisoned arrow! The puma utters a fierce growl--it turns upon
itself--the arrow is crushed between its teeth. Another "hist!"--
another arrow! Hark! a well-known voice--well-known voices--the voices
of Don Pablo and Guapo! See! they burst into the glade--Don Pablo with
his axe, and Guapo with his unerring gravatana!

The puma turns to flee. He has already reached the border of the wood;
he staggers--the poison is doing its work. Hurrah! he is down; but the
poison does not kill him, for the axe of Don Pablo is crashing through
his skull. Hurrah! the monster is dead, and Leon is triumphantly borne
off on the shoulders of the faithful Guapo!

Don Pablo dragged the puma away, in order that they might get his fine
skin. The ant-eaters, both of which were now dead, he left behind, as
he saw that the termites were crawling thickly around them, and had
already begun their work of devastation. Strange to say, as the party
returned that way, going to dinner, not a vestige remained either of the
ais or the ant-eaters, except a few bones and some portions of coarse
hair. The rest of all these animals had been cleared off by the ants,
and carried into the cells of their hollow cones!

It was, no doubt, the noise of the bark-hunters that had started the
ant-eaters abroad, for these creatures usually prowl only in the night.
The same may have aroused the fierce puma from his lair, although he is
not strictly a nocturnal hunter.

A curious incident occurred as they approached the glade on their way
home. The male tamanoir was roused from his nest among the dry leaves,
and Guapo, instead of running upon him and killing the creature, warned
them all to keep a little back, and he would show them some fun. Guapo
now commenced shaking the leaves, so that they rattled as if rain was
falling upon them. At this the ant-eater jerked up its broad tail, and
appeared to shelter itself as with an umbrella!