ung foals--they
wouldn't dare to assault a strong vigorous horse."

"Do you think so?" demanded the first speaker. "Ask Benito here, who,
himself, lost a valuable animal taken by the jaguars."

Benito, hearing this reference to himself, advanced towards the two
speakers.

"One day," he began, "or rather, one night just like this, I chanced to
be at a distance from the Hacienda del Venado, where I was a _vaquero_
at the time. I was in search of a strayed horse, and not finding him,
had made up my mind to pass the night at the spring of _Ojo da Agua_. I
tied my horse at a good distance off--where there was better grass--and
I was sleeping, as a man sleeps after riding twenty leagues, when I was
suddenly awakened by all the howlings and growlings of the devils. The
moon shone so clear you might have fancied it daylight. All at once my
horse came galloping toward me with the lazo hanging round his neck,
which he had broken at the risk of hanging himself.

"`Here then,' said I, `I shall now have two horses to go in search of
instead of one.'

"I had scarce made this reflection, when I observed, under the light of
the moon, a superb jaguar bounding after my horse. He scarce appeared
to touch the ground, and each leap carried him forward twenty feet or
more.

"I saw that my poor steed was lost. I listened with anxiety, but for a
while heard nothing. At the end of a quarter of an hour, however, a
terrible roar--"

The speaker paused, and stood trembling.

"_Virgen Santa_!" cried he, "that's it!" as the fearful cry of a jaguar
at that moment echoed through the camp, succeeded by a deathlike
stillness, as if both men and animals had been alike terrified into
silence.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

NOCTURNAL VISITORS.

The sudden shock occasioned by the perception of a peril so proximate
and imminent paralysed every tongue. Even the ex-herdsman himself was
silent, and appeared to reflect what had best be done to avoid the
danger.

At this instant the voice of Don Estevan broke the temporary silence
that reigned within the camp.

"Get your weapons ready!" shouted he.

"It is useless, master," rejoined the old vaquero, whose experience
among jaguars gave a certain authority to his words, "the best thing to
be done, is to keep the fire ablaze."

And saying this, he flung an armful of fagots upon it, which, being as
dry as tinder, at once caught flame--so as to illumine a large circle
around the camp.

"If the