64 BIG GAME FIELDS 



perch on the highest trees, while the wail of the 

 goatsucker sounded like the departing voice of 

 a lost soul. The millions of frogs and toads, one 

 after another, helped to swell the chorus of the 

 night. The dragon-flies came with their ghost- 

 lights, that glowed and glimmered and danced 

 and danced. Then the weird night song of the 

 howling monkeys swelled through the forests un- 

 til they rose, fell again, then rose, smothering all 

 other sounds. The apparently sleeping world is, 

 in reality awake, alive with sound; for it is now 

 patroled by other creatures. Those of the day 

 have retired, their allotted tasks performed; now 

 come the things that hate the glarish sun, to 

 frolic, seek food, prowl, seize and be seized in 

 turn, until the breaking of the distant dawn. 



With the hounds the next morning we struck 

 out into the jungle. My men had reported plenty 

 of jaguar spoor and other unfailing signs that 

 one or more of the big crafty cats were in the 

 vicinity. I felt, too, that it was about time that 

 something should happen. Quickly and quietly 

 we threaded our way through the intricate for- 

 ests. Game signs were plentiful and varied from 

 puma and jaguar to labba. But suddenly the 

 unexpected occurred, as it almost invariably does. 

 I heard a rustling in the thick underbrush ahead, 



