nalogue of the one which you hold in your
hand. That will give you some idea of the size of the creature. You
will observe from the cartilage that this is no fossil specimen, but
recent. What do you say to that?"

"Surely in an elephant----"

He winced as if in pain.

"Don't! Don't talk of elephants in South America. Even in these days
of Board schools----"

"Well," I interrupted, "any large South American animal--a tapir, for
example."

"You may take it, young man, that I am versed in the elements of my
business. This is not a conceivable bone either of a tapir or of any
other creature known to zoology. It belongs to a very large, a very
strong, and, by all analogy, a very fierce animal which exists upon the
face of the earth, but has not yet come under the notice of science.
You are still unconvinced?"

"I am at least deeply interested."

"Then your case is not hopeless. I feel that there is reason lurking
in you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it. We will now
leave the dead American and proceed with my narrative. You can imagine
that I could hardly come away from the Amazon without probing deeper
into the matter. There were indications as to the direction from which
the dead traveler had come. Indian legends would alone have been my
guide, for I found that rumors of a strange land were common among all
the riverine tribes. You have heard, no doubt, of Curupuri?"

"Never."

"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods, something terrible, something
malevolent, something to be avoided. None can describe its shape or
nature, but it is a word of terror along the Amazon. Now all tribes
agree as to the direction in which Curupuri lives. It was the same
direction from which the American had come. Something terrible lay
that way. It was my business to find out what it was."

"What did you do?" My flippancy was all gone. This massive man
compelled one's attention and respect.

"I overcame the extreme reluctance of the natives--a reluctance which
extends even to talk upon the subject--and by judicious persuasion and
gifts, aided, I will admit, by some threats of coercion, I got two of
them to act as guides. After many adventures which I need not
describe, and after traveling a distance which I will not mention, in a
direction which I withhold, we came at last to a tract of country which
has never been described, nor, indeed, visited save by my unfortunate
predecessor. Would you kind