The Black Phantom

by Leo E. Miller

Straight as an arrow she headed to the north on some mission well-known to herself, moving like a shadow and at a rapid pace. Before long the windfall with the giant cottonwood containing the precious little Warruk had been left far behind. Suma knew where the round, red chonta nuts grew and that they ripened during the season of rains; and that even now the ground was covered with the tasty morsels. But this knowledge was of a vague nature only and interested her but indirectly. What was far more important was that the peccary herds fed on the chonta nuts and were sure to be in the neighborhood of their favorite feeding-grounds.

To stalk and kill one of the ferocious little animals entailed a great deal of danger—to the inexperienced hunter, but Suma feared them not. Never, since the time she had miscalculated the distance of the spring and had succeeded only in slightly wounding her quarry—with the resultant squeal of terror and the onrush of fully a hundred of the stricken one’s fellows—and the night of uncertainty spent in the treetop, had they given her any trouble. But all that is another story as likely as not to repeat itself in the life of Warruk for it seemed that trouble with a peccary herd fell to the lot of every Jaguar and was part of his education.

The clump of chonta trees grew a good five miles from the windfall. Suma had covered half the distance when a sharp odor in the air caused her to stop and, standing like an exquisitely chiselled statue, with tensed muscles and alert poise, to drink deeply the scent-laden air. The vision of a peccary dinner left her instantly and her pink tongue stole out gently until it touched her moist, black nose in anticipation of a far more satisfying gorge on venison.

A moment later the Jaguar resumed her journey, but in a different direction. She had swerved at right angles to her former course and was hot on the trail of the deer.

Like a shadow Suma seemed to flow over the ground, looking neither to right nor left, the massive paws falling with the lightness of leaves dropping from the trees. A frightened agouti scampered across her path and stopped, frozen with fear, and a green ribbon-like snake drooping in festoons from a low-growing branch hastily drew up its coils as the big cat passed below.

Again Suma paused to sniff the air, then advanced; but this time in a careless, leisurely manner. In a moment she came upon the deer standing in an open little glade among the dark tree trunks. If the creature was startled by the appearance of the Jaguar, it gave no indication of the fact. It snorted and stamped its forefeet while Suma sat down on the wet leaves and surveyed her intended victim in the most unconcerned manner. For a moment the two stared at one another. Then, without warning, the brocket turned and darted away.

Suma did not follow. Instead she arose and began to search the neighborhood, for the other creature’s actions plainly betrayed the fact that she had a fawn hidden nearby. Why exhaust herself in a fruitless chase after the fleeting mother whose speed was so much greater than her own and who had dashed away simply to deceive her foe and in the hope of drawing her from the spot where her offspring was concealed? The fawn, far more desirable than its elder, could be had for the mere finding.

But the fawn had already learned one of the most important lessons of life and this bit of knowledge had saved him from an untimely end no fewer than seven times during his ten days on earth.

Now, the fawn was prettily spotted, and most persons who delve into such matters and try to reconcile cause and effect, particularly from a distant point of view, would have said that this coloration was the means of rendering it, crouching among the ferns with head and neck flattened to the ground, invisible to its enemies. But the truth of the matter was that its color had nothing to do with its security. During the hours of dusk and darkness when the predaceous animals came out to hunt, the fawn might have been red or blue or green so far as its color was concerned with its safety, for in the gloom of the jungle all objects not snowy white appeared black if they could be distinguished at all. The important thing was that it lay motionless—had been in this identical position for some time, and so long as it did not move it gave off no scent. It was for this same reason that the tinamou and quail and other ground-nesting birds escaped the keen noses of the foxes, otherwise they would have been exterminated long ago. The preying animals hunted by scent, not by sight.

If the brocket mother, after her wild dash in the hope of luring Suma from the spot had only stayed away both she and her offspring would have been safe. But, finding that her ruse had been unsuccessful she anxiously returned. The Jaguar sensed her coming and waited; the snort and impatient stamp that announced her arrival was superfluous for Suma had seen her approach.