DANGEROUS GAME. 13 



Bob was inclined to raise his Winchester and fire upon the cowardly assailants, 

 but he finally moved off without doing so. 



" The leopard wouldn't appreciate my interference," was the thought of the 

 youth, " and I don't believe he needs it anyway." 



Bob was on his way back to camp, as the sultry day was drawing to a close, and 

 he kept a close watch for danger. 



" I can't see anything," he said to himself, holding his rifle ready for instant use, 

 " but I have been in the Dark Continent long enough to know that that is no proof 

 I am not in peril." 



The listening ear caught the sounds of the myriad birds flitting among 

 the exuberant branches overhead, and now and then the deep, resonant roar 

 of some animal warned him that he was liable at any moment to be brought 

 face to face with some of the fierce denizens of the wilds, always eager to fly 

 at any intruder. 



It was the growing conviction that something was stealthily following him which 

 tried the nerves of Bob Marshall, for it is the unseen that tests one's bravery, since 

 so long as it remains unseen it is unknown, and imagination gives it form and 

 substance ten-fold more fearful than reality. 



He was sure that the limbs in the immediate vicinity contained no hideous 

 python or boa-constrictor, for those reptiles must of necessity wind themselves 

 around the trunk or branches of a tree, where the quick eye of the hunter readily 

 detects them. And Bob was equally positive there was none of those frightful 

 serpents approaching him through the jungle, for his hearing, trained to marvelous 

 nicety, was sure to catch the soft rustling that invariably betraysthe approach of a 

 large snake. 



" It must be some beast crouching so flat on a branch that his body is entirely 

 hidden helloa ! there he is, sure enough ! " 



Barely thirty feet above the head of the youth, an immense limb put forth from 

 a tree whose trunk was no more than a rod from where he stood. The diameter of 

 the branch was sufficient to hide the body of a large animal, when stretched along 

 its length, and such concealment it did afford to a brute whose ears, glowing eye- 

 balls and open mouth protruded just far enough over the support to enable the 

 young hunter to identify him as an enormous leopard. 



So skillfully had the beast disposed himself on the limb that more than likely Bob 

 would not have detected him, but for the low, threatening growl which he emitted. 



Had the leopard held his peace and kept his head lowered, the youth would have 

 walked directly beneath him, giving the treacherous animal a chance to bound 

 down upon his shoulders with the irresistibility of a thunderbolt. But the leopard 

 did not know enough to take that precaution. 



His species, however, is among the most cunning of the animal kingdom, and, 

 though it is probable that this specimen was now brought face to face with a Cau- 

 casian for the first time, he had sufficient subtlety to keep himself well shielded by 

 the solid branch along which he was extended. 



