Part 71 (1/2)

There was a simultaneous scream from the jaguar. Something appeared suddenly to impede it; and instead of alighting on the body of its victim, it fell short, with a dead plash upon the water!

Like an echo of his own, a cry came from the chapparal, close following a sound that had preceded it--the sharp ”spang” of a rifle.

A huge dog broke through the bushes, and sprang with a plunge into the pool where the jaguar had sunk below the surface. A man of colossal size advanced rapidly towards the bank; another of lesser stature treading close upon his heels, and uttering joyful shouts of triumph.

To the wounded man these sights and sounds were more like a vision than the perception of real phenomena. They were the last thoughts of that day that remained in his memory. His reason, kept too long upon the rack, had given way. He tried to strangle the faithful hound that swam fawningly around him and struggled against the strong arms that, raising him out of the water, bore him in friendly embrace to the bank!

His mind had pa.s.sed from a horrid reality, to a still more horrid dream--the dream of delirium.

CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR.

A PRAIRIE PALANQUIN.

The friendly arms, flung around Maurice Gerald, were those of Zeb Stump.

Guided by the instructions written upon the card, the hunter had made all haste towards the rendezvous there given.

He had arrived within sight, and fortunately within rifle-range of the spot, at that critical moment when the jaguar was preparing to spring.

His bullet did not prevent the fierce brute from making the bound--the last of its life--though it had pa.s.sed right through the animal's heart.

This was a thing thought of afterwards--there was no opportunity then.

On rus.h.i.+ng into the water, to make sure that his shot had proved fatal, the hunter was himself attacked; not by the claws of the jaguar, but the hands of the man just rescued from them.

Fortunate for Zeb, that the mustanger's knife had been left upon land.

As it was, he came near being throttled; and only after throwing aside his rifle, and employing all his strength, was he able to protect himself against the unlooked-for a.s.sault.

A struggle ensued, which ended in Zeb flinging his colossal arms around the young Irishman, and bearing him bodily to the bank.

It was not all over. As soon as the latter was relieved from the embrace, he broke away and made for the pecan tree;--as rapidly as if the injured limb no longer impeded him.

The hunter suspected his intent. Standing over six feet, he saw the b.l.o.o.d.y knife-blade lying along the cloak. It was for that the mustanger was making!

Zeb bounded after; and once more enfolding the madman in his bear-like embrace, drew him back from the tree.

”Speel up thur, Pheelum!” shouted he. ”Git that thing out o' sight.

The young fellur hev tuck leeve o' his seven senses. Thur's fever in the feel o' him. He air gone dullerious!”

Phelim instantly obeyed; and, scrambling up the tree-trunk took possession of the knife.

Still the struggle was not over. The delirious man wrestled with his rescuer--not in silence, but with shouts and threatening speeches--his eyes all the time rolling and glaring with a fierce, demoniac light.

For full ten minutes did he continue the mad wrestling match.

At length from sheer exhaustion he sank back upon the gra.s.s; and after a few tremulous s.h.i.+verings, accompanied by sighs heaved from the very bottom of his breast, he lay still, as if the last spark of life had departed from his body!

The Galwegian, believing it so, began uttering a series of lugubrious cries--the ”keen” of Connemara.

”Stop yur gowlin, ye durned cuss!” cried Zeb. ”It air enuf to scare the breath out o' his karkidge. He's no more dead than you air--only fented. By the way he hev fit me, I reck'n there ain't much the matter wi' him. No,” he continued, after stooping down and giving a short examination, ”I kin see no wound worth makin' a muss about. Thur's a consid'able swellin' o' the knee; but the leg ain't fructered, else he kudn't a stud up on it. As for them scratches, they ain't much. What kin they be? 'Twarnt the jegwur that gin them. They air more like the claws o' a tom cat. Ho, ho! I sees now. Thur's been a bit o' a skrimmage afore the spotted beest kim up. The young fellur's been attakted by coyoats! Who'd a surposed that the cowardly varmints would a had the owdacity to attakt a human critter? But they _will_, when they gits the chance o' one krippled as he air--durn 'em!”