on a bough than we made out Tim a
little way off, perched in the same manner upon another tree. It was
pretty clear that he had been besieged by the herd, as we now were.

We shouted to him, inquiring how long he had been there.

"For the last two hours or more," was his answer. "I was just walking
through the forest on my way home when these terrible little bastes
caught sight of me; and if I had not sprung up this tree like lightning,
they would have dug their sharp tusks into my legs. Though I have shot
every arrow I had at my back, and have killed half a score of them,
nothing I could do would make them go away; and by my faith, too, the
brutes seem determined to starve us out."

This was not pleasant, as we might expect to be treed in the same
manner. We determined, however, to do what we could to put the
peccaries to flight, and began shooting away; taking good aim, that we
might not uselessly expend our arrows. The little brutes kept rushing
about below us, now and then charging against the trunk of the tree, and
then looking up at us with their wicked eyes, evidently wishing that we
might slip and tumble down among them.

"A pretty condition we should be in if we did so," I remarked to Arthur.

"Take care what you are about, then," he answered. "Keep your feet
firmly fixed on the branch below you before you shoot."

We were standing up on one branch, leaning against another some way
above it,--a good situation for our purpose. We had killed nearly a
dozen peccaries; still the animals seemed totally to disregard the
falling of their companions, and rushed about as fiercely as at first.
We at length began to fear that they would remain till we were starved,
for we had already expended the greater number of our arrows. Arthur at
last advised that we should stop shooting, in the hope that, from some
cause or other, the peccaries would raise the siege and take their
departure. "Even could we cut up the slaughtered animals, we could not
carry home a quarter of them, and it is evidently useless to shoot more
of them," he observed.

Arthur had turned round to speak to Tim, when I heard him whisper, "See,
see! look at that creature!" Casting my eyes in the direction in which
he pointed, I beheld a large jaguar stealing cautiously along towards
one of the peccaries which lay wounded on the ground. We kept perfectly
silent, as we hoped the jaguar would not only carry off the dying
peccary, but a few of it