uars when he spoke, but his words were
prophetic, and that prophecy was speedily verified. They had hardly been
uttered when two yellow bodies, dashing out of the brushwood, appeared
near the upper end of the lake. There was no mistaking what they were.
Their orange flanks and ocellated sides were sufficiently
characteristic. _They were jaguars!_

A few springs brought them to the edge of the water, and they were seen
to take the track over which Leon had just passed. They were following
by the scent--sometimes pausing--sometimes one passing the other--and
their waving tails and quick energetic movements showed that they were
furious and excited to the highest degree. Now they disappeared behind
the palm-trunks, and the next moment their shining bodies shot out again
like flashes of light.

Dona Isidora and the little Leona screamed with affright. Don Pablo
shouted words of encouragement in a hoarse voice. Guapo seized his
axe--which fortunately he had finished hafting--and ran towards the
bridge, along the water's edge. Don Pablo followed with his pistols,
which he had hastily got his hands upon.

For a short moment there was silence on both sides of the river. Guapo
was opposite Leon, both running. The stream narrowed as it approached
the ravine, and Leon and Guapo could see each other, and hear every word
distinctly. Guapo now cried out,--

"Drop one! young master--_only one_!"

Leon heard, and, being a sharp boy, understood what was meant. Up to
this moment he had not thought of parting with his "cats"--in fact, it
was because he had _not_ thought of it. Now, however, at the voice of
Guapo, he flung one of them to the ground, without stopping to see where
it fell. He ran on, and in a few seconds again heard Guapo cry out--

"_Now the other!_"

Leon let the second slip from his grasp, and kept on for the bridge.

It was well he had dropped the cubs, else he would never have reached
that bridge. When the first one fell the jaguars were not twenty paces
behind him. They were almost in sight, but by good fortune the weeds and
underwood hid the pursued from the pursuers.

On reaching their young, the first that had been dropped, both stopped,
and appeared to lick and caress it. They remained by it but a moment.
One parted sooner than the other--the female it was, no doubt, in search
of her second offspring. Shortly after the other started also, and both
were again seen springing along the trail in pursuit. A fe