plunge the elephantine quarry
struck the water and was gone. The tiger cat, forced to relinquish its
hold or drown, swam hurriedly back to the bank below the encampment,
where it roared and spat and squalled in a blood-chilling paroxysm of
baffled fury. And though every man was awakened, not one left the flimsy
shelter of his net. Nor did anyone so much as speak until Tim, wearying
of the noise, announced his intention to "go bust that critter in the
nose and give him somethin' to yowl about."

The proposal met with instant and peremptory veto.

"As you were!" snapped McKay. "Let him alone! You wouldn't have a
Chinaman's chance in that black bush. A jaguar is bad all the time, and
when he's mad he's deadly. Never fool with one of those beasts, Tim.
I've met them before and I know what they can do."

To which Jose agreed with many picturesque oaths, declaring that a
jaguar was no mere beast--it was a devil. Tim, grumbling, obeyed orders.
The jaguar, hearing their voices, stopped its noise and probably
reconnoitered the camp. But no man saw the brute, and its next roar
sounded from some spot far off in the jungle.

Other things, too, passed within Tim's range of vision from time to time
in the moonlit hours: a queer bony creature which he took for some new
kind of turtle, but which really was an armadillo; a monstrous hairy
spider which slid like a streak up his net, hung there for a time,
decided to go elsewhere, and departed with such speed that the man
inside rubbed his eyes and wondered if he was "seein' things that
ain't"; a couple of vampires which flitted in from nowhere like ghoulish
ghosts, wheeled and floated silently on wide wings, seeking an exposed
foot protruding from the hammocks, found none, rested a moment on the
roof poles, chirping hoarsely, and veered out again into the night.

To Knowlton's watch came a strange owl-faced little monkey with great
staring eyes and face ringed with pale fur--one of those night apes
seldom seen by man; a small troop of kinkajous, slender, long-tailed
animals which looked to be monkeys, but were not, and which leaped
deftly among the branches like frolicsome little devils let loose to
play under the jungle moon; a big scaly iguana, its back ridged with saw
teeth and its pendulous throat pouch dangling grotesquely under its jaw;
and more than one deadly snake and huge alligator, the first gliding
past with venomous head raised and cold eye glinting, the second lying
qu