A slight sound on his left flank caused Benee to gaze hastily round. To his horror, he found himself face to face with a puma.
Here was indeed a dilemma!
If he fired he would make his presence known, and small mercy could he expect from the cut-throats. At all hazards he determined to keep still.
The yellow eyes of this American lion flared and glanced in a streak of sunshine shot downwards through the bush, and it was this probably which dimmed his vision, for he made no attempt to spring forward.
Benee dared scarcely to breathe; he could hear the beating of his own heart, and could not help wondering if the puma heard it too.
At last the brute backed slowly astern, with a wriggling motion.
But Benee gained courage now.
During the long hours that followed, several great snakes passed him so closely that he could have touched their scaly backs. Some of these were lithe and long, others very thick and slow in motion, but nearly all were beautifully coloured in metallic tints of crimson, orange, green, and bronze, and all were poisonous.
The true Bolivian, however, has but little fear of snakes, knowing that unless trodden upon, or otherwise actively interfered with, they care not to waste their venom by striking.
At long, long last the cut-throats got up to leave. They would before midnight no doubt reach some lonely outpost and demand entertainment at the point of the knife, and if strange travellers were there, sad indeed would be their fate.