Then he leaped magnificently. He landed within twenty-five feet of Ken, and when he plunged down he rolled clear over. Ken shot him through and through. Yet he got up, wheezing blood, uttering a hoarse bellow, and made again at Ken.
Ken had been cold, sick. Now panic almost overpowered him. The rifle wabbled. The bamboo glade blurred in his sight. A terrible dizziness and numbness almost paralyzed him. He was weakening, sinking, when thought of life at stake lent him a momentary grim and desperate spirit.
Once while the jaguar was in the air Ken pulled, twice while he was down. Then the jaguar stood up pawing the air with great spread claws, coughing, bleeding, roaring. He was horrible.
Ken shot him straight between the wide-spread paws.
With twisted body, staggering, and blowing bloody froth all over Ken, the big tiger blindly lunged forward and crashed to earth.
Then began a furious wrestling. Ken imagined it was the death-throes of the jaguar. Ken could not see him down among the leaves and vines; nevertheless, he shot into the commotion. The struggles ceased. Then a movement of the weeds showed Ken that the jaguar was creeping toward the jungle.
Ken fell rather than sat down. He found he was wringing wet with cold sweat. He was panting hard.
"Say, but--that--was--awful!" he gasped. "What--was--wrong--with me?"
He began to reload the clips. They were difficult to load for even a calm person, and now, in the reaction, Ken was the farthest removed from calm. The jaguar crept steadily away, as Ken could tell by the swaying weeds and shaking vines.
"What--a hard-lived beast!" muttered Ken. "I--must have shot--him all to pieces. Yet he's getting away from me."