CHAPTER XIII. 



ANOTHER OF THE CAT FAMILY. 



WAS fishing when Thursday, his hair standing 

 on end and his eyes like the setting sun, came 

 running toward me. He was breathless and 

 speechless. 



" Have you seen the ghost of your ancestor ? " 

 He shook his head, but still could not speak. Evidently 

 something serious was the matter. All he could do was 

 to point to a little island left in the stream by the falling 

 waters, but about which I could see nothing extraordinary. 

 When I started to move in that direction, the one from 

 which he had just come, he grasped me firmly, and 

 nothing could shake him off. "• Let me go, coward ! " 

 said I ; '^ or at least let us climb into this tree, where 

 we can see something besides these everlasting marshes." 

 The idea seemed to strike him, for in a twinkling he was 

 in the lower branches of the tree, where I rejoined him, 

 and where a curious sight greeted me. A jaguar, the 

 fiercest of the cat family, was a few yards away peace- 

 fully engaged in fisliing. I could hardly believe my eyes. 

 But there he crouched, — an enormous specimen fully six 

 feet long besides his tail, that would measure a yard more, 



