s him so that he quickly forgot the
occurrence.

Warruk's real education began when his mother started to bring some of
her victims to the lair. For this purpose she always chose the smaller
animals which she ordinarily should not have bothered to kill for her
own use. Mice, spiny rats, forest quail and an occasional squirrel were
taken to the cavity at various times and carelessly deposited by the
side of the cub. Cautious at first of making too intimate advances
toward these unfamiliar objects he began soon to look forward to the
return of his mother, knowing well that she would not come empty-handed.
He pounced upon the lifeless forms clawing, biting and shaking them
until the fur or feathers flew, amid growls and snarls that were but the
forerunners of the ferocious nature which would assert itself when
latent character was fully developed. Suma always watched the
proceedings with a complacent expression, fully satisfied with the
progress of her offspring.

Although using every strategy to conceal her secret from the other
inhabitants of the forest, particularly while in the vicinity of the
windfall, the actions of the Jaguar had not escaped the sharp eyes of a
band of female howling monkeys that frequented the wall of trees on one
side. They were alone, that is, the males had been driven to distant
parts until the mothers could bring forth their young and rear them to
the point where they were no longer in danger of death at the hands and
teeth of their jealous fathers.

Among the members of the troop, numbering four, was Myla, sad and
forlorn of face and housing a broken heart within her bosom, for she
had lost her baby. It happened early one afternoon when the four had
ascended to the top of a tall tree to dry their bedraggled fur during
one of those rare intervals when the clouds broke and the sun showed
his brassy face for a brief time. Such an opportunity was not to be
neglected. Happy and grateful they were, the four monkey mothers,
sitting on the dome of green leaves, each with her little one in her lap
while her long fingers delved among its rather sparse fur. Then, like a
bolt out of a blue sky it fell. A shadow plunged down from the heavens
with a rush that was almost a roar; wide-spreading feet with long,
curved talons shot out of the hurtling black mass, and Myla's lap was
empty. She leaped high into the air after the marauder with a frantic
scream of anguish only to fall back heavily upon the boughs