a trail of V-shaped ripples that shimmered and sparkled if
the sun shone, and on moonlit nights. Often, however, they swam under
water to some nearby island reed-bed or to the security of a burrow
beneath the overhanging bank.

The rain had stopped for one of those rare and all too brief intervals
that broke the monotony of the sullen roar and the misery caused by a
perpetually drenched skin when the Jaguar approached the fringe of tall,
waving canes. Broad runways opened into the maze of stalks where the
capybaras had gnawed their way through the dense growth and then hastily
had turned back to start a new one--just as a woodpecker chiseling a
hole through a wall and dismayed at seeing daylight ahead, leaves the
laboriously excavated tunnel and quickly starts another.

The forest beyond the canes was an unknown world of lurking dangers. But
the capybaras simply found it impossible to loose themselves from it.
Always, at the most unexpected moment they came suddenly upon it looming
before them like a sinister, black monster.

Suma boldly entered one of the numerous openings for she knew it was not
there she would come upon her intended victims. She was only taking an
easy route to the main path that ran parallel to the river but upon
nearing this she immediately left the beaten trail and glided into the
growth at one side. There she lay in wait fully concealed by the
darkness, and the stems and leaves.

In addition to the wide runway trodden by the feet of countless
generations of the great rodents there were other evidences of their
recent presence and the atmosphere was laden with their scent. Suma
sniffed the heavy air greedily and her eyes glowed as she shifted her
gaze up and down the thoroughfare for a first glimpse of an unsuspecting
victim to come her way. There was but a minute to wait. A black, rounded
hulk appeared, moving with the silence of a shadow; on the near side
were two smaller forms, young, moving along stealthily at the side of
their mother. The Jaguar's mind was made up instantly; when the trio
came within range she would pounce upon the cubs, for they were tender
and without the layers of rancid fat of the older animal. But while her
eyes shone with the fire of anticipation and her tail lashed ever so
slightly an unforeseen thing happened. Evidently a difference of opinion
over some matter or other arose between the two smaller creatures, for
they stopped suddenly and began fighting, rolling ov