If the worst came to the worst he would fire at the creature and trust to luck to escaping from the opposite horn of his dilemma. But in this Nat had reckoned without his host—or rather, his four-footed enemy—for without the slightest warning the big creature launched its lithe body through the air. With a cry of alarm Nat dropped, and it landed right on the spot where a second before he had been. At the same instant the colonel and his companion wheeled their horses with a startled exclamation. The horses themselves, no less alarmed, were pawing the ground and leaping about excitedly.
The boy's fall, and the howl of rage from the disappointed animal, combined to make a sufficiently jarring interruption to the calm and quiet of the mountain side.
"Caramba! what was that?" the colonel's voice rang out sharply.
"It's a boy!" cried his companion, pointing to Nat's recumbent form. To the lad's dismay, in his fall his revolver had flown out of its holster and rolled some distance down the hillside. He lay there powerless, and too stunned and bruised by the shock of his fall to move.
But the great cat above him was not inactive. Foiled in its first spring it gathered itself for a second pounce but the colonel's sharp eye spied the tawny outline among the green boughs. Raising his rifle he fired twice. At the first shot there came a howl of pain and rage. At the second a crashing and clawing as the monster rolled out of the tree and fell in a still, motionless heap not far from Nat.
"Even the mountain lions seem to work for us," exclaimed the colonel triumphantly, as he dismounted and walked to Nat's side.
"Yes, señor, and if I make no mistake this lad here is one of the very boys we are in search of."
"You are right. These Americans are devils. I make no doubt but this one was on his way to spy into our manner of living at our fort. Eh boy, isn't that true?"
"No," replied Nat, whose face was pale but resolute. He scrambled painfully to his feet. Covered with dust, scratched in a dozen places by his fall through the branches, and streaming with perspiration, he was not an imposing looking youth right then; but whatever his appearance might have been, his spirit was dauntless.
"No," he repeated, "I came up here to look for a horse that one of us had lost."