nough to use
this weapon? Clumsy-looking as the tapir certainly is, he can shuffle
over the ground faster than the fastest Indian.

Guapo knew all this, but he also knew a stratagem by which the
amphibious brute could be outwitted, and this stratagem he designed
putting in practice. For the purpose he carried another weapon besides
the _machete_. That weapon was a very pacific one--it was a _spade_!
Fortunately he had one which he had brought with him from the mountains.

Now what did Guapo mean to do with the spade? The tapir is not a
burrowing animal, and therefore would not require to be "dug out." We
shall presently see what use was made of the spade.

After crossing the bridge, and getting well round among the palms, the
hunter came upon a path well tracked into the mud. It was the path of
the tapir,--that could be easily seen. There were the broad
footmarks--some with three, and others with four toes--and there, too,
were places where the animal had "wallowed." The tracks were quite
fresh, and made, as Guapo said, not an hour before they had arrived on
the spot.

This was just what the tapir-hunter wanted; and, choosing a place where
the track ran between two palm-trees, and could not well have gone round
either of them, he halted, rested his _machete_ against a tree, and took
a determined hold of the spade. Leon now began to see what use he
intended to make of the spade. He was _going to dig a pit_!

That was, in fact, the very thing he was going to do, and in less than
an hour, with the help of Leon, it was done--the latter carrying away
the earth upon "bussu" leaves as fast as Guapo shovelled it out. When
the pit was sunk to what Guapo considered a sufficient depth, he came
out of it; and then choosing some slender poles, with palm-leaves,
branches, and grass, he covered it in such a manner that a fox himself
would not have known it to be a pit-trap. But such it was--wide enough
and deep enough, as Guapo deemed, to entrap the largest tapir.

It now only remained to get the tapir into it, but therein lay the
difficulty. Leon could not understand how this was to be managed. He
knew that at night, as the animal was on its way to the water, it might
step on the covering, and fall in. But Guapo had promised him that he
should see the tapir trapped in an hour's time. Guapo had a plan of his
own for bringing it that way, and he at once proceeded to put his plan
into execution.

They started along the trail goi