anas and leaves.

You may fancy that it is easy to pursue a troop of monkeys in a forest.
But it is not easy--in most cases it is not _possible_. The tangled
underwood below puts a stop to the chase at once, as the monkeys can
make their way through the branches above much quicker than the hunter
can through the creeping plants below.

The pursuit would have been all up with Guapo, for the marimondas had
soon got some way beyond the edge of the grove; but just as he was
turning to sulk back, his keen Indian eye caught sight of one that was
far behind the rest--so far, indeed, that it seemed determined to seek
its safety rather by hiding than by flight. It had got under cover of a
bunch of leaves, and there it lay quiet, uttering neither sound nor
syllable. Guapo could just see a little bit of its side, and at this in
an instant the gravatana was pointed. Guapo's chest and cheeks were
seen to swell out to their fullest extent, and off went the arrow. A
shriek followed--the monkey was hit--beyond a doubt. Guapo coolly
waited the result.

A movement was visible among the leaves; the marimonda was seen to turn
and double about, and pluck something from its side; and then the broken
arrow came glancing among the twigs, and fell to the ground. The monkey
was now perceived to be twisting and writhing upon the branches, and its
wild death-scream was answered by the voices of the others farther off.

At length its body was seen more distinctly; it no longer thought of
concealment; but lay out along the limb; and the next moment it dropped
off. It did not fall to the ground, though. It had no design of
gratifying its cruel destroyer to that extent. No; it merely dropped to
the end of its tail, which, lapped over the branch, held it suspended.
A few convulsive vibrations followed, and it hung down dead!

Guapo was thinking in what way he might get it down, for he knew that,
unless he could reach it by some means, it would hang there until the
weather rotted it off, or until some preying bird or the tree-ants had
eaten it. He thought of his axe--the tree was not a very thick one, and
it was a soft-wood tree. It would be worth the labour of cutting it
down.

He was about turning away to get the axe, when his eye was attracted by
the motion of some object near the monkey.

"Another!" he muttered, and, sure enough, another,--a little tiny
creature,--ran out from among the leaves, and climbing down the tail and
body