i68 JUNGLE ISLAND 



crouched, and hissed Hke any startled pussy cat. 

 We looked at each other without moving. My 

 machete was six feet away leaning against a 

 tree. My little revolver, which sometimes fired 

 and sometimes did not, was in the bag at my 

 feet. Suddenly the black cat sprang back twice 

 its distance, hissed again, watching me closely, 

 and then circled around me down the hill and up 

 again to the ridge, as if it were returning to a 

 path I had blocked. 



How big was the cat? I cannot be sure, but 

 I think that its furry tail was nearly two feet 

 long and the head and body a little longer. San- 

 tiago saw it later and insisted that it was six 

 feet long. The natives to whom I told the story, 

 called it a ''chicken cat." The real name is a 

 tongue twister, "yaguarundi," and chicken cat 

 fits well enough its habit of eating big ground 

 birds. I later found chicken-cat tracks around 

 a heap of feathers that was all that was left of 

 a ''paradise bird.'' Santiago was very plainly 

 afraid of it, but I do not believe it would show 

 fight against a man unless it were first attacked. 

 More than one night a big cat prowled around 

 my shack without ever attempting to push 

 through the musHn-curtained doorway behind 

 which I was sleeping. 



That afternoon and the evening before there 

 had been a sound in the near-by trees as if some 

 animal were crashing recklessly about, though 



