Hardgrave’s laboratory, however, was not Pant’s destination. He was going much farther that night.
Recent reports of fresh ravages committed by the man-eating jaguar had thrown his men into a panic. One man had left camp. Others were threatening to do so. Something must be done about it, and that at once.
Lowering a mysterious burden into the bottom of the dugout, and leaning a heavy rifle across it, Pant paddled away down the creek.
Having located the end of the rough trail which Johnny had cut to the foot of the bread-nut tree, he bent down and began creeping cat-like through the brush. Half way to the tree he stumbled and all but fell. Like a flash he was on his feet and three yards from the spot. Something moving beneath his feet had caused him to stumble. His breath came quick. Had he stepped on one of those great, poisonous snakes that infest the tropical jungle? He would hazard a flash of his pocket light.
For a second an oblong circle of light appeared on the back trail, then the boy laughed a low laugh. An armadillo, one of those strange, harmless, turtle-like creatures, had lain asleep in the trail. It was this he had stepped on, and not a snake.
Greatly relieved, he resumed his stealthy journey down the trail. Some forty feet from the bread-nut tree he paused to peer about him in the darkness. Having found one of those low palms whose leaves, three or four feet across, are quite solid save for their ragged edges, he began silently slashing off leaves until he had quite a pile. Some of these he spread three or four deep on the damp earth. Then, lying flat down, he drew others over him until he was almost covered.
“Wouldn’t want an elephant to come down this trail,” he chuckled to himself.
A few moments later there sounded from that mass of green palm leaves such a long-drawn-out whistle as the little deer of these forests uses to call his mate.
Pant was not hunting deer, but jaguars. In fact, he was hunting one jaguar, the killer. Once in the jungles of India he had used an exceedingly powerful red light to frighten a tiger. Now, with the aid of dry batteries from the power boat, he had arranged a bright red light. He hoped with his deer call to entice the killer to enter the trail, then to hold him at bay with the red light until he had a fair shot at him.
It was, he knew right well, a hazardous undertaking. Jaguars might not fear a red light. Who could tell about that? The killer might scent him and, turning hunter, leap upon him from the low boughs of the black tamarind trees that grew near. This he must risk. Pant had an interest in Johnny’s quest for the red lure. He had an interest in the Caribs. He had a still wider interest in all humanity. If all reports were true, if this great cat with the mark above his eye had done the killing he was credited with, he should be killed. Pant felt it his duty to attempt this hard and dangerous task.