sheds his wing-feathers the rains have started to fall
in the mountains. Run, all of you, to the high banks and remain there. I
will go to warn the others. Soon the flood will be upon us."

The urchins fled without further urging. And Oomah started on a run
toward the cluster of hovels on the margin of the water.

His cries brought out the men and women before he reached their midst,
and it required but a moment to deliver his message.

"Impossible," Choflo replied with a malicious gleam in his eyes. "The
sign did not appear to _me_."

"But, I saw it. The children saw it. Gather up what you can and run for
your lives."

"No!" The leader raised his hands. "The flood will not reach us. I will
stop it."

He raised his voice in a low, droning chant but before he had uttered a
dozen words there came a distant roar, dull but unmistakable, that
drowned the sound of his incantation.

The Indians needed no further evidence of the truth of Oomah's warning.
Abandoning everything, they rushed in a body toward the distant bank
that meant safety; and Choflo, despite his years, well held his place
among them.

They were just in time. Scarcely had the last man gained the higher
ground than the wall of water thundered down the riverbed, engulfing
everything in its path. Their weapons were lost; the turtles in the
corrals were swept away; their cooking utensils had vanished. Had they
heeded Oomah without delay it would have been different.

They had escaped with nothing but their lives; but, even for this they
were grateful even though it meant days of suffering in the
rain-drenched forest before they could again replace their loss.

CHAPTER III

THE TERROR OF CLAWS AND FANGS.

When Suma, the Jaguar, driven from the dismal wastes of the pantenal
country by the encroaching floods of the rainy season reached the
higher, forested region skirting the Andean foothills, she entered upon
a wild orgy of terrorism and slaughter.

Her instinct gratified, Suma retired to the cavity in the cottonwood
while the torrential rains fell with a monotonous roar, and the
craneflies with their lacy, whirring wings formed a curtain in the
entrance to lend sanctity to the inner chamber.

Ordinarily, Suma did not destroy wantonly; she killed for food only or
in self-defense; or, in resentment of the too familiar advances or the
indifference of some one of the less intelligent creatures that had not
yet learned to respect her power and