Cautiously Tom brought his weapon to bear. Quiet as Ned and he had been after the discovery, the jaguar seemed to feel that something was wrong. Intent on his prey, for a time he had stood over it, gloating. Now the brute glanced uneasily from side to side, its tail nervously
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twitching, and it seemed trying to gain, by a sniffing of the air, some information as to the direction in which danger lay, for Tom and Ned had stooped low, concealing themselves by a screen of leaves.
The Indian, after his first frenzied outburst of fear, now lay quiet, as though fearing to move, moaning in pain.
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
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the native over which it had been crouching before it delivered the death stroke, now never to fall.