Notwithstanding the change of attitude, the negro still continued the victim of his fears. Instead of paying proper attention to what his companion was saying, his eyes wandered abroad, searching the horizon on every side of him, as if at every moment he expected to see the jaguars returning to attack them.
Noticing his uneasiness, the Indian made an attempt to reassure him.
“You have nothing to fear, comrade,” said he. “The tigers have the whole river to drink out of; and it is not likely they will come back here.”
“They may be hungry,” rejoined Clara, “and I have heard say that they prefer a black man, like me, to either a white or an Indian.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed his companion. “You need not flatter yourself on that score. Bah, man! there’s not a tiger in all the State that would be fool enough to prefer a carcass tough and black as yours, to the flesh of a young colt or heifer, either of which they can have at any time. Ha, ha! If the jaguars only heard what you’ve said, they would shake their sides with laughter.”
The fearlessness exhibited by the Indian himself in regard to the jaguars is easily explained, since it was by the destruction of these fierce animals that he got his living. His calling was a peculiar one, though common enough throughout the tropical regions of America. He was, in fact, a tigrero, or tiger-hunter, a class of men whose sole occupation consists in pursuing, à l’outrance, the different beasts of prey that ravage the flocks and herds of the great haciendas de ganado, or grazing estates. Among these predatory creatures the jaguar is the most destructive; and the hunting and slaying of these animals is followed by many men—usually Indians or half-breeds—as a regular profession.
As the jaguar (Felis onca) in all parts of Spanish-America is erroneously called the tiger (tigré), so the hunter of this animal is termed a tiger-hunter (tigrero). Many of the more extensive estates keep one or more of these hunters in their pay; and the Indian we have introduced to the reader was the tigrero of the hacienda Del Valle. His name and nation were declared by himself in the speech that followed—
“Ah!” he exclaimed with an air of savage exultation, “neither tigers nor men may laugh with impunity at Costal, the Zapoteque. As for these jaguars,” he continued after a pause, “let them go for this night. There will be nothing lost by waiting till to-morrow. I can soon get upon their trail again; and a jaguar whose haunt is once known to me, is a dead animal. To-night we have other business. There will be a new moon; and that is the time when, in the foam of the cascade, and the surface of the solitary lake, the Siren shows herself—the Siren of the dishevelled hair.”
“The Siren of the dishevelled hair?”
“Yes; she who points out to the gold-seeker the rich placers of gold—to the diver the pearls that lie sparkling within their shells at the bottom of the great ocean.”