He was so intent on the prospect of a feast off the dead guanaco that he did not see us. He crawled up near it, and then sprang on the carcass. We did not like to have our game destroyed, so we could not help shouting out, “Get off from that, you beast!” Our voices startled the puma, and looking round and seeing us, and Surley approaching with an angry growl, he trotted off down the mountain. We agreed that he was probably an old fellow, and that, having lost his activity, he could not catch the live animals. We both fired, but we were not near enough, and missed him. Away he bounded down the mountain without once stopping to look behind him.
“I vote we take some slices out of our friend here,” said Jerry. His suggestions were generally very practical. “I don’t see why we should run the risk of losing our dinner altogether. The chances are that another of these pumas finds him out and leaves us but poor pickings.” I agreed to the wisdom of the suggestion, and so we supplied ourselves with enough meat for all the party. We then raised a mark near our guanaco as we had done before.
“That will do famously,” said Jerry, finishing the heap with a long piece of cactus. “Now, let us go and look for Fleming. The doctor and guides will be back soon. I’m getting very hungry, I know, and if they don’t come I vote we make an attack on the prog baskets without them.”
“Let us find Fleming and the baskets first,” I answered; for my mind began to misgive me about finding him as easily as we had expected. The chase after the guanacoes had led us a long way, and I found it very difficult to calculate distances or the size of objects in that bright atmosphere, where the proportions of all surrounding objects were so vast. Still I did not express my fears to Jerry. We kept our eyes about us, on the chance of falling in with another puma; for we agreed that it would be much better to be able to talk of having killed a lion than even two harmless llamas. On we went for a long time, scrambling over the crags, and precipices, and rough ground.
“Where can Fleming have got to?” exclaimed Jerry at last; “I am certain that we are up to the spot where we left him.” I thought so likewise. We shouted at the top of our voices, but the puny sounds seemed lost in the vast solitudes which encompassed us. “I think it must have been further on,” said I, after I had taken another survey of the country. So on we rushed, keeping our eyes about us on every side.
We had gone on some way further, when Jerry laid his hand on my arm. “What is that, Harry?” he exclaimed. “It is the puma! See the rascal how stealthily he creeps along! He’s after some mischief, depend on it. I hope he won’t go back and eat up our guanacoes.”
“We must take care that he does not do that,” said I. “We’ll stop his career. Is your rifle ready. We’ll creep after him as stealthily as he is going along. He is so busy that he does not see us, and the chances are that we get near enough to knock him over.”
“Come along then,” exclaimed Jerry; and, imitating the puma’s cautious mode of proceeding, we rapidly gained on him. We had got up almost close enough to fire when Jerry whispered, “O Harry, what is that? It’s Fleming, dear! dear!”
Just below where the puma was crouching down ready to make his fatal spring, lay the form of the old seaman; but whether he was dead, or asleep, or fainting, we could not tell. There was not a moment to be lost. In another instant the savage brute would have fixed his claws in his throat. We rushed on—so did old Surley. The puma had actually begun his spring when we fired. Both our bullets took effect, but still he leaped forward. He fell close to Fleming. Our shipmate sprang up on his knees, but it was only to receive the claws of the brute on his chest. The blow knocked him over. We were running on and shouting all the time, to distract the attention of the puma.
“He is killed! he is killed!” cried Jerry. “No.” In an instant, with a clasp-knife in his hand, Fleming was up again and plunging away at the throat of the brute. He rose to his knees. He gave stab after stab, and prevented the puma from fixing its jaws on his own throat, which seemed the aim of the enraged animal. The brave Surley was at his flanks tearing and biting at them with all his might.