“And your other friend—what do you know of him?”
“Oh, I have known him since he was a child.”
“And yet,” the girl persisted, “he is very different from you. Are you sure he is of the same race as yourself?”
“Quite,” Templemore replied, laughing. “We are both of a nation that I suppose you have never heard of, but that makes no small amount of noise in the outer world, I can assure you. We are both English.”
Just then a heavy curtain was drawn back, and Ulama entered, and with her an immense puma, larger even than their friend of the canyon, and behind it the latter animal itself!
“Why,” exclaimed Zonella, “there is ‘Nea,’ who has been missing for several days,” and she called the animal to her. Great was her surprise to see it, after a brief acknowledgment of her greeting, turn to Jack and his two friends, with every sign of recognition and delight.
“Why, it’s Puss, by all that’s wonderful!” Jack cried. “At least, that’s the name I gave her,” he added, by way of explanation to Zonella.
“Do you know her, then? But how can that be?”
“She has been living with us for the last week; but she deserted us last night, and we wondered where she had got to.”
“Then that accounts for it. We could not think what had become of her.” And she began to chide the animal for its desertion of its home and mate.