"Now, Tom, do you climb the tree. I will give you the pieces of meat up, and then do you lift the other stag to a higher branch. I don't suppose the brute can climb, but he may be able to do so. At any rate, we will sleep in the tree, and keep watch and ward."
As soon as Tom had followed these instructions, Ned handed him up the bows and arrows and spears, and then clambered up beside him. As the fire again burned low, an animal was seen to approach, cautiously.
"A lion!" whispered Tom.
"I don't think that he is as big as a lion," Ned said, "but he certainly looks like one. A female, I suppose, as it has got no mane."
Of course the lads did not know, nor indeed did anyone else, at that time, that the lion is not a native of America. The animal before them was what is now called the South American lion, or puma.
The creature walked round and round the fire, snuffing; and then, with an angry roar, raised itself on its hind legs and scratched at the trunk of the tree. Several times it repeated this performance; and then, with another roar, walked away into the darkness.
"Thank goodness it can't climb!" Ned said. "I expect, with our spears and swords, we could have beaten it back if it had tried; still, it is just as well not to have had to do it. Besides, now we can both go to sleep. Let us get well up the tree, so that if anything that can climb should come, it will fall to at the deer to begin with. That will be certain to wake us."
They soon made themselves as comfortable as they could in crutches of the tree, tied themselves with their sashes to a bough to prevent a fall, and were soon asleep.
The next day they rested in the wood, made fresh bowstrings from the twisted gut of the deer, cut the skins up into long strips, thereby obtaining a hundred feet of strong cord, which Ned thought might be useful for snares. Here, too, they shot several birds, which they roasted, and from whose feathers, tied on with a thread-like fiber, they further improved their arrows. They collected a good many pieces of fiber for further use; for, as Tom said, when they got on to rock again they would be sure to find some splinters of stone, which they could fasten to the arrows for points; and would be then able to do good execution, even at a distance.
They cut a number of strips of flesh off the deer, and hung them in the smoke of the fire; by which means they calculated that they could keep for some days, and could be eaten without being cooked; which might be an advantage, as they feared that the odor of cooking might attract the attention of wandering Indians.