“I wish they would follow me,” he muttered; glaring into the gloom behind him; “the man they have killed is worth more than the whole tribe of miscreants.”

He was in a savage mood, and, despite the fearful danger from the poisoned arrows and spears, he yearned for another chance at the wretches who fought so unfairly.

He held a couple of loaded and repeating Winchesters, with which he could pour the most destructive of volleys among the savages, and he longed for the opportunity; but the profound silence which followed the fierce encounter was so striking that to Fred it all seemed like some horrid vision of sleep.

But he dare not wait.  These wretches had come from the direction of the Xingu, and he was apprehensive of trouble at the camp, where the three native attendants had been left.  His services might be needed at that very moment.

He did not run, but advanced with the stealth of an American Indian stealing upon an enemy.  It seemed to him his senses were strung to a higher pitch than ever before, for he had not walked far, when he became aware that some one was ahead of him, in the path and travelling in the same direction.

As yet he could catch no glimpse of the stranger, but there could be no mistake about the stealthy tread.  He was sure, too, that sooner or later the broken rays of moonlight would give him the sight for which he was waiting.

“Yonder is a spot where he will betray himself,” he added a moment later, as he observed the faint light ahead.

Instead of following on, Fred paused and laying the rifle of his dead friend on the ground he knelt and sighted his own piece as best he could in the darkness.  Where the hunter is placed in such a situation he instinctively feels how to aim his weapon.

He was not kept long waiting.  A dark form became dimly outlined in the faint moonlight and an instant later the infuriated Ashman fired.

The rasping screech which followed was enough to curdle one’s blood, but the young man only uttered an exclamation of disgust.  He had driven a ball through the vitals of a South American cougar, instead of through one of the natives, a score of whom he gladly would have wiped out of existence had he possessed the power.

The shot could not have been better aimed, had the sun been shining.  The furious beast dropped in the middle of the path, rolled over on his back, clawed the air for a moment or two, and then became motionless.  Had not Ashman been on the lookout when he reached the spot, he would have stumbled over the carcass.

“It is only so much ammunition thrown away,” he muttered, again glaring into the gloom behind him, in the hope of catching sight or sound of his pursuers; but they were too thoroughly panic-stricken by the frightful experience a few minutes before to trouble the white man for some time to come.

The dull roar of the rapids grew plainer, and, increasing his pace, he had but to walk a short distance when the clear moonlight, unobstructed by cloud or vegetation, was discerned where the path debouched from the forest.