“What next?”
“Why don’t you come and stroke it?” cried Rob. “Because I’m sure it’s wild and fierce,” was the reply. “Well, it isn’t now.”
“Ahoy!” came from a distance, and the puma looked sharply about, with ears erect and an intense look, as if it were listening.
“Ahoy!” shouted back Rob. “Let’s go to them. Come along, puss.”
He took a few steps forward, the puma staring at him and twisting its tail from side to side; but it did not stir. “There, I told you so. It is wild.”
“Well, it may be, but it’s quite ready to make friends, and it will not hurt us. Come along.”
Joe did not possess his companion’s faith, and keeping his face to the puma as much as he could, he advanced toward where they could see Brazier waving his hand to them to come on.
As they advanced Rob kept on stopping and looking back at the puma, calling it loudly; but the animal made no response. It stood there with its eyes dilating again, waving and twisting its tail, till they were thirty or forty yards distant, when, with a sudden movement, it half turned away, crouched, its hind legs seemed to act like a spring, and it was shot forward into the low growth and disappeared.
“Gone!” said Joe, with a sigh of relief.
“Why, you’re actually afraid of a cat,” said Rob mockingly.