He emitted a puff of bluish smoke, and resumed his first position. Several hours passed thus. Suddenly, a rather loud rustling was heard in the thicket, some distance behind the stranger.
"Ah, ah!" he said, "I fancy my man is coming at last."
In the meanwhile, the sound became louder, and rapidly approached.
"Come on, hang it!" the horseman shouted, as he rose. "By our Lady of Pilar! You have surely been keeping me waiting long enough."
Nothing appeared: the clearing was still deserted, although the sound had attained a certain degree of intensity. The stranger, surprised at the obstinate silence of the man he was addressing, and specially by his continuing not to show himself, at length rose to see for himself the reason. At this moment, his horse pricked up its ears, snorted violently, and made a sudden effort to free itself from the lasso that held it; but our new acquaintance rushed toward it and patted it. The horse trembled all over, and made prodigious bounds in order to escape. The stranger, more and more surprised, looked round for an explanation of these extraordinary movements, and was soon satisfied.
Scarce twenty yards from him a magnificent jaguar, with a splendidly-spotted hide, was crouched on the main branch of an enormous cypress, and fixed on him two ferocious eyes, as it passed its blood-red, rugged tongue over its lips with a feline pleasure.
"Ah, ah!" the stranger said to himself in a low voice, but displaying no further excitement, "I did not expect you; but no matter, you are welcome, comrade. Caray! We shall have a fight for it."
Without taking his eye off the jaguar, he convinced himself that his machete quitted its scabbard readily, picked up his rifle, and, after these precautions were taken, he advanced resolutely toward the ferocious brute, which saw him coming without changing its position. On arriving within ten yards of the jaguar, the stranger threw away the cigarette he had till now held between his lips, shouldered his rifle, and put his finger on the trigger. The jaguar drew itself together and prepared to leap forward. At the same moment a hoarse yell was heard from the opposite side of the clearing.
"Wait a minute," the stranger said to himself with a smile; "it seems there are two of them, and I fancied I had to do with a bachelor jaguar. This is beginning to grow interesting."
And he threw a glance on one side. He had not deceived himself: a second jaguar, rather larger than the first, had fixed its flashing eyes upon him.