This freed his hands and feet, but besides the shock
of the fall, they had tumbled into a bed of thorns, and he limped away
broken and bruised, and groaning loudly; for when monkeys _are_ hurt,
they take pains that everybody shall know it.

It was a long time before Jack was well enough to go about again; but
when he did, he had an encounter with his old enemy the puma. And this
was how it came about.

One day the puma invited his friend the stag to go with him and see a
comrade, who was famous for the good milk he got from his cows. The
stag loved milk, and gladly accepted the invitation, and when the sun
began to get a little low the two started on their walk. On the way
they arrived on the banks of a river, and as there were no bridges in
those days it was necessary to swim across it. The stag was not fond
of swimming, and began to say that he was tired, and thought that
after all it was not worth going so far to get milk, and that he
would return home. But the puma easily saw through these excuses, and
laughed at him.

'The river is not deep at all,' he said; 'why, you will never be off
your feet. Come, pluck up your courage and follow me.'

The stag was afraid of the river; still, he was much more afraid of
being laughed at, and he plunged in after the puma; but in an instant
the current had swept him away, and if it had not borne him by
accident to a shallow place on the opposite side, where he managed to
scramble up the bank, he would certainly have been drowned. As it was,
he scrambled out, shaking with terror, and found the puma waiting for
him. 'You had a narrow escape that time,' said the puma.

After resting for a few minutes, to let the stag recover from his
fright, they went on their way till they came to a grove of bananas.

'They look very good,' observed the puma with a longing glance, 'and I
am sure you must be hungry, friend stag? Suppose you were to climb the
tree and get some. You shall eat the green ones, they are the best and
sweetest; and you can throw the yellow ones down to me. I dare say
they will do quite well!' The stag did as he was bid, though, not
being used to climbing, it gave him a deal of trouble and sore knees,
and, besides, his horns were continually getting entangled in the
creepers. What was worse, when once he had tasted the bananas, he
found them not at all to his liking, so he threw them all down, green
and yellow alike, and let the puma take his choice. And what a dinne