umps of bushes with
patches of woodland here and there.

Pete was abreast of me with the other gun, and I was sweeping the ground
before me in search of the orange plumage of the bird I sought, which
might spring up at any time, when I had to pass round a pile of rugged
stones half covered with herbage.

"Sort of place for snakes to bask," I said to myself, as I gave it a
little wider berth, when all at once, to my surprise, up rose with a
whirr not the bird I sought, but a little flock of seven or eight, and
as I raised my gun to fire at the group of whizzing orange--_Thud_!

Something heavy had bounded from the pile of stone I had passed, to
alight full upon my shoulders.

_Bang, bang_! went both barrels of my gun, and the next moment I was
down, spread-eagle fashion, on my face, conscious of the fact that what
was probably the puma's mate had bounded right upon me as I stooped
forward to fire, and as I heard Pete utter a yell of horror, the beast's
muzzle was pressed down on the back of my neck, and its hot breath
stirred the roots of my hair.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

A LUCKY ESCAPE.

For a few minutes, or a few moments, I cannot tell which, I lay there
half stunned.

Then I began to think that I should be torn to pieces and devoured, and
my next vivid thought took the form of a question--Will it hurt much?

This set me wondering whether I was already badly injured, and as I had
read that people who are seriously hurt do not feel pain at the time, I
took it for granted that I was in a very sad state. But all the same I
did not feel torn by the creature's claws, nor yet as if its teeth had
been driven into the back of my neck, though I supposed that they had
been. What I did feel was that the puma was heavy, soft, and very hot.

"Then I can't be hurt," I reasoned with myself at last, "or I should
feel the pain now," and with this I began to think it was time to do
something; but I hesitated about beginning, for I could make no use of
my discharged gun.

There was my knife, though, if I could get it out from its sheath in my
belt, and feeling that, if it were to come to a struggle, my empty hands
would be no match for the puma's teeth and claws, I began to steal my
fingers towards my belt.

I stopped directly, though, for at the first movement there was a deep
shuddering growl at the nape of my neck, and it seemed to run down my
spine and out at the tips of my fingers and toes. It was just as if the
puma