United States or Central African Republic ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Kendric jerked it out, and before Zoraida's cry could burst from her lips and before her hand struck his arm, he drove a bullet into the puma's skull between the hard evil eyes. The animal dropped in its tracks, with never another whine. As the puma went down, Zoraida winced as though in bodily pain, as though it had been her flesh instead of her cat's that had known the deep bite of hot lead.

The whip was flung out and snapped, and there was no sound; the puma's teeth clicked together on empty air, and no sound; Betty, looking up, shrieked, and no sound. They looked to be so close to Kendric that he felt as if with one stride he could hurl himself among them; and yet he knew that they might be shut off from him by innumerable walls and locked and barred doors.

The welt his fingers had felt burned them. He came slowly upon the puma. Lawless could see the hard glitter of his knife. The puma's teeth sawed together, its claws picked at the rocks, its body curved for a spring. The man sprang first, and ran the knife in; but not into a mortal corner. Once more they locked.

Often and often the puma had laid traps for the monkey, which he felt sure his foe could not escape; and the monkey would pretend that he saw nothing, and rejoice the hidden puma's heart by seeming to walk straight into the snare, when, lo! a loud laugh would be heard, and the monkey's grinning face would peer out of a mass of creepers and disappear before his foe could reach him.

Instantly the long whip snapped its terse admonition to good manners. Nothing happened, except that the pug, from between the puma's legs, barked insolently. The sandy-brown bulk reached its allotted pedestal, which was quite absurdly too small for it to mount, dropped the musket with a clatter, fell upon all fours with a loud whoof of relief, and relapsed into a bear.

Bristling with wrath, he tiptoed menacingly back toward the puma's pedestal, determined to wipe out the indignity. This time his challenge was accepted. Tomaso's whip snapped, but the audience was too intent to hear it. The great puma slipped down from his pedestal, ran forward a few steps, and crouched. With a shrill snarl the pug rushed in.

He observed the curious, twitching movement of the puma's legs as they were gathered closer under his body, and which is always a sure evidence that the animal is about to make his decisive leap upon his victim.

The hunter jumped aside and wheeled, with his knife lifted, his disabled left arm against the tree trunk. But in that same instant, a miracle! Noiselessly the puma's tawny length shot out overhead and fell upon the bear in the very mid-rush of the charge. At once it seemed as if some cataclysmic upheaval were in progress.

The puma is dark reddish-yellow, the jaguar orange with black spots and rings on his fur, a marking which reminds one of the colour of certain poisonous snakes. The puma's cubs are charming little creatures, like kittens, but larger.

He pulled forward the loose skin on the puma's breast and showed them the scar of a knife-wound above the one his own knife had made. "I've got the other murderer," he said; "Gordineer's knife went in here. Sacre, but it is good!" Pourcette's flesh needed little medicine; he did not feel his pain and stiffness.