WILD HUNTING COMPANIONS 161 



ing to pieces. On their bare feet they wore 

 rusty spurs, and the stirrups were iron rings, in 

 which they thrust the big toe, and the toe next 

 it. But no antic of the half-broken horse and 

 no difficulty in the jungle trail made the slight 

 est impression on them. They were only fairly 

 good hunters and trailers, and when in thick 

 forest Kermit with his compass could find his 

 way better than they could. A few of them 

 hunted the jaguar and also the cashada, the big 

 peccary which goes in herds and is aggressive 

 and truculent; but most of them let the danger 

 ous big cat and the dangerous little hogs severely 

 alone, and hunted only the tapir, deer, and 

 capybara. The rare jaguars that become man- 

 eaters, the occasional giant anacondas, the 

 deadly poisonous snakes, and the cashadas, 

 were all the subjects of superstitious tales. 

 They were shy about telling these stories to 

 persons who might laugh, but if assured of sym 

 pathy would occasionally unbend. Then they 

 would describe how man-eating jaguars were 

 warlocks, able to enslave the souls of those they 

 slew; so that each murdered man thenceforth 

 served the dreadful beast that had eaten him, 

 guarded him from danger, and guided him to 

 fresh victims; or they would tell a ghost-story 

 I never quite understood, about a seemingly 



