kept very low,
and ashes being drawn up over the embers so as to completely extinguish
the light until the village was well behind them. Shooting was, for the
time, entirely given up.

CHAPTER XVII.

DOWN THE RIVER.

The time passed pleasantly to Stephen as he reclined on a heap of skins
and blankets watching the forests that bordered the stream, or looking up
through the overhanging canopy at the birds and monkeys, the latter of
which afforded him great amusement by the way in which they chattered and
gesticulated. The mothers with the little ones climbed to the top of the
trees, while the males came boldly out on the lower branches to bid
defiance to those in the boat. Often he slept, for the heat, and the
almost noiseless fall of the paddles, and the tranquil easy motion of the
canoe made him exceptionally drowsy. One day his eye fell upon something
on a large branch of a tree that bent down to within twelve feet of the
water. It was only some ten yards ahead when he noticed it. It was partly
hidden by foliage, and for a moment it seemed to him to be a thickening of
the branch. He would have passed it without a thought had it not been for
a slight movement; then a glance showed him that it was an animal of some
kind lying almost flattened upon the tree.

He caught up his rifle just as it rose to a crouching attitude, and was
upon the point of springing upon Pita. The gun was loaded with shot only,
but as he threw up the muzzle and fired almost instantly, the beast gave a
terrible roar. Its spring was arrested, and it fell headlong into the
water within a foot of the side of the boat. A tawny head, with two rows
of big white teeth, arose from the water almost abreast of him, and a
great paw was raised to strike at the boat, but Hurka's rifle cracked out,
and the animal sank again below the water.

"You have saved my life, senor," Pita said gravely. "It was a jaguar, and
had you not fired it would have struck me down and crushed in my skull
with a blow of its paw. I wonder I did not see it, but I was thinking at
the time that we had best tie up for an hour or two so as to pass the next
village, which is a large one, after dark."

"It was almost hidden among those leaves," Stephen said, "and had it not
moved I should not have noticed it."

[Illustration: "THE ANIMAL WAS ON THE POINT OF SPRINGING WHEN STEPHEN
FIRED."]

"I think you blinded i