The blood-red stream of fire-ants was half-way down the tree by this time, and Will was within a scant ten feet of the ground. The ants were very close as he lowered himself another yard, then a foot lower, and a foot beyond that, until the tusks of the plunging, leaping peccaries beneath him nearly touched his shoes. Bracing his feet against the rough trunk, he drew the little ax from his belt, and prepared to spring as far out toward Jud's tree as possible, although his heart sank and the flesh of his legs and thighs seemed to curl and chill as he looked out upon the gleaming ring of sharp, slashing tusks among which he must leap. Once downed by the herd, and he would be ripped to pieces before he could regain his feet.
Jud by this time was on the ground, and was just about to shoot, in an attempt to open a passage through the packed herd, when unexpected help came from above.
Out of the dark depths of a near-by silk-cotton tree sprang with silent swiftness a great black figure which gleamed in the half-light like watered silk.
"Look out! Look out! The black tiger!" shouted Pinto, despairingly, from his tree, having shot his last arrow into the frothing circle. Even as he spoke, the "tiger," as the Indians call the jaguar, landed full on the back and shoulders of the hindmost of the desperate, raging circle. As he landed, the great cat struck one blow with that terrible full stroke of a jaguar, which has been known to break the neck of an ox, and the peccary, with a shrill squeal of terror, went down before the death which haunts every peccary herd. At the squeal, the wild swine swung away from the tree with an instantaneous rush. A jaguar is to a peccary herd what the gray wolf is to the musk-ox of the north and the very life of each member of the herd depends upon facing their foe. Upon the instant, every peccary left the trees and hurried toward their dying comrade.
Unfortunately for the jaguar, the force of his spring, added to the impetus of his stroke, carried him too far, and for a moment he whirled over in a half-somersault and was entangled among the vines. Those lost seconds were fatal, in spite of all his strength and swiftness. Even as he recovered his feet in a lithe whirl and flirted over one shoulder the body of the dead peccary as a man might toss a rabbit, the death-ring formed around him. Two deep, the maddened swine circled him. With a deep, coughing roar, the tiger dropped his prey and struck with his armed paws lightning-like blows that ripped the life out wherever they landed. By this time, however, the peccaries were beyond all fear of death, and a score of them dashed in upon him. Jud had involuntarily leveled his automatic at the great brute as it struck the ground, but lowered it with a grim laugh.
"He's fightin' for our lives as well as his own," he called quietly to Will, as the latter reached the ground and slipped unnoticed past the heaving, tossing, fighting circle of peccaries. In another minute the boy had gained the safety of Jud's tree and gripped the old man's hand between his own.
"Let's stay here," said the old trapper, "an' see it out. We can climb this tree if they come back, an' you'll never see a fight like this again."
Even as he spoke, the circle bent in upon the great cat. With desperate leaps, he tried to spring over its circumference; but each time it widened out so that always in front and at his back and on both flanks was a fence of sharp, slashing tusks. All around him lay dead peccaries which had fallen before his incredibly rapid strokes; but now his dark, gleaming skin was furrowed and slit with long bloody slashes where the tusks of dead and dying boars had gone home. His strength ebbed with his blood. Once more, with a deep, despairing roar, he struck with both paws, killing a peccary at each blow. Then he staggered forward, and in a minute was down!
Time and again his great jaws opened and closed, sinking fierce white fangs deep through the skull or spine of some peccary, but at last only a black heaving of the furious wild pigs could be seen. At times the dark, desperate head of the dying tiger thrust its way out, only to fall back, smothered and slashed. Amid a scene of brute rage and fury which even Jud, old hunter as he was, had never imagined before, the little party slipped shudderingly away and hastened back over the trail along which they had come, nor ever stopped until they had reached the refuge of the montaria. There they found the rest of the party peacefully sleeping through the midday hours under a cool canopy of broad green palm-leaves which Hen had thrown together. Professor Ditson was more interested in their description of the black tiger than in any of the other details of their adventure.
"It was the melanic type of the jaguar and very rare," he said regretfully. "It was certainly unfortunate that you couldn't have collected this one, for there is no specimen, living or dead, in any of the zoölogical gardens or natural-history museums of the world."