Over the supper, though, I related our experience with the pumas, and my uncle looked serious.
“You got off well, Nat,” he said. “They are not dangerous beasts, though, unless attacked and hurt. I’d give them as wide a berth in future as I could. I’m thankful that you had such an escape.”
Chapter Nine.
Through the Cavern.
My uncle accompanied me in my next and several other visits to the upper valley, with the result that we obtained as many specimens of the beautiful orange birds as we required, and in addition several rare kinds of humming-birds; but strangely enough, anxious as I was that my uncle should see one of the pumas they were never encountered once.
The whole of the upper valley was very lovely, and the air, from its being so high up among the mountains, deliciously cool.
“It seems a pity,” my uncle said, “that nobody lives here.” For as far as we could make out in our many journeys, human beings had never penetrated its solitudes.
“Yes,” I said, on one of these occasions, “it is a glorious place, uncle, and anyone might make it a lovely garden with hardly any trouble; but I shouldn’t like to live here after all.”