ement and bent on but one thing--the destruction
of their enemy which supposedly had fallen into their clutches.

That was Warruk's one chance, provided by his timely though
unintentional loosening of the decayed branch. He slid quickly down the
side of the trunk opposite the struggling mass of animals and darted
away.

The ensuing months of sunshine and balmy weather were passing all too
quickly in a succession of glorious days and starlit nights. Everywhere,
in grassy pampa, forest island, reedy marsh and in the streams and
lagoons, life teemed and the creatures were filled with the joyousness
of living. Everyone was happy. What did it matter if myriads were doomed
to die in the course of each twenty-four hours to provide food for the
others? Was not it the plan of Nature that it should be so, from the
very beginning? When an individual of any species lost its life there
were others left to carry on the purpose of the kind and the survivors
took no note of the fact that one of their number had vanished. There
was no trace of dread or tragedy in the demeanor of any creature. Each
unconsciously took his chance in the game of life just as civilized man
takes his in multitudinous ways. If a bird narrowly escaped the talons
of a hawk, even losing a fluff of feathers in the encounter, it did not
remain indefinitely in dense cover, in fear and trembling; it soon
forgot the experience and went about its affairs in the usual way, just
as a man who barely escapes being struck by an automobile while crossing
the street will not hesitate to again run the same risk at the very next
corner. That is exactly as Nature intended it should be for, if either
man or beast spent the time brooding over the many things that _could_
happen, life would be a perpetual torment and probably of short
duration.

Warruk, the black Jaguar, lived with a measure of joyousness that was
brimming over. He was thrilled with the vastness of his world and with
the possibilities that arose each day. There were adventures and
misadventures and he relished both, for each added to the sum total of
the things he should know.

As the dry season advanced the water in the lagoons fell rapidly and
some of the smaller ones dried up completely. Those of larger size
shrank to narrow proportions, the water receding gradually under the
onslaughts of the sunshine and drying wind.

The pools that lay in the center of the wide, sun-baked mudflats were
the mecca of a ho