Suddenly the jaguar, attracted either by some slight movement on the part of Ned or Tom, or perhaps by having winded them, turned his head quickly and gazed with cruel eyes straight at the spot where the two young men stood behind the bushes.

“He’s seen us,” whispered Ned.

“Yes,” assented Tom.  “And it’s a perfect shot.  Hope I don’t miss!”

It was not like Tom Swift to miss, nor did he on this occasion.  There was a slight report from the electric rifle—­a report not unlike the crackle of the wireless—­and the powerful projectile sped true to its mark.

Straight through the throat and chest under the uplifted jaw of the jaguar it went—­through heart and lungs.  Then with a great coughing, sighing snarl the beast reared up, gave a convulsive leap forward toward its newly discovered enemies, and fell dead in a limp heap, just beyond the native over which it had been crouching before it delivered the death stroke, now never to fall.

“You did it, Tom!  You did it!” cried Ned, springing up from where he had been kneeling to give his chum a better chance to shoot.  “You did it, and saved the man’s life!” And Ned would have rushed out toward the still twitching body.

“Just a minute!” interposed Tom.  “Those beasts sometimes have as many lives as a cat.  I’ll give it one more for luck.”  Another electric projectile through the head of the jaguar produced no further effect than to move the body slightly, and this proved conclusively that there was no life left.  It was safe to approach, which Tom and Ned did.

Their first thought, after a glance at the jaguar, was for the Indian.  It needed but a brief examination to show that he was not badly hurt.  The jaguar had leaped on him from a low tree as he passed under it, as the boys learned afterward, and had crushed the man to earth by the weight of the spotted body more than by a stroke of the paw.

The American jaguar is not so formidable a beast as the native name of tiger would cause one to suppose, though they are sufficiently dan-gerous, and this one had rather badly clawed the Indian.  Fortunately the scratches were on the fleshy parts of the arms and shoulders, where, though painful, they were not necessarily serious.

“But if you hadn’t shot just when you did, Tom, it would have been all up with him,” commented Ned.

“Oh, well, I guess you’d have hit him if I hadn’t,” returned the young inventor.  “But let’s see what we can do for this chap.”

The man sat up wonderingly—­hardly able to believe that he had been saved from the dreaded “tigre.”  His wounds were bleeding rather freely, and as Tom and Ned carried with them a first-aid kit they now brought it into use.  The wounds were bound up, the man was given water to drink and then, as he was able to walk, Tom and Ned offered to help him wherever he wanted to go.

“Blessed if I can tell whether he’s one of our Indians or whether he belongs to the Beecher crowd,” remarked Tom.