Pant lifted the wall of the tent and stepped out into the moonlight, followed by Johnny.
“You didn’t finish,” suggested Johnny.
“There’s not much more to tell. You have to hand it to that doctor, though. When I didn’t come back in the morning, he tried to organize a party to search for me. No one would go. They were scared cold by the black cat. So he came alone. He found me there, too weak to move, and he carried me all the way back and put me in a bed I’d helped him to buy.
“The natives went for the black cat and brought him back to the village in triumph.
“When I was better a trader came to me and offered me the price of a tiger’s cub for the black cat. I laughed in his face, and told him I’d take the cat to the States myself. That’s what I did. I got five thousand dollars for him, and sent it all back to the doctor so he could buy beds, and absorbent cotton, and medicine for his hospital.”
“That was good of you,” said Johnny.
“Who’s good?” demanded Pant. “Didn’t he teach me sense when I didn’t know anything but cats? Didn’t he carry me out of the jungle on his back when no one else dared to go in?”
For a time they were silent. Then, gripping Johnny’s arm, Pant whispered: “But, Johnny, we’re after worse cats than the black one. We’re after human tigers. Tigers that destroy man’s faith in man; that make life little worth the living. And, Johnny, we’re on their trail, close on their trail. Perhaps to-morrow, perhaps the day after, you shall see—well, you shall see what you shall see.”
CHAPTER XIV
IN TOM STICK’S HOUSE
That same night, by the dull glow of a half burned out camp fire on the bank of a river, Pant told Johnny of his plans as a Secret Service man on a big case, and how they had worked out thus far.