He had no time to think of this, or even to question whether the gun was loaded or empty before the dark form of the jaguar shot into the air, and the maddened creature came like a cannon ball toward the twain.
"Jump for your life!" cried Jack, and so closely followed the animal upon his words that, as the couple separated, Ronie springing to the right and he to the left, an outstretched paw of the creature brushed a shoulder of each as it sped past them!
The jaguar had not struck the ground a few feet away, flinging up a cloud of dirt where he landed in a heap, before Ronie had seized the firearm. It was the work of but another instant for him to cock the gun and bring its stock to his shoulder.
As quickly as this was done, the jaguar had as quickly recovered from the effect of its disastrous jump, had wheeled about, and now crouched for a second leap, his maddening rage increased twofold by his recent failure. The muzzle of Ronie's firearm now caught its attention, and our hero was now its object.
So hurriedly had this all taken place that Ronie was still in ignorance as to the condition of his weapon, and knowing that his life hung upon the result, he took hasty aim and pulled the trigger.
A quick, sharp report sent a thrill of joy through his frame, while it was so swiftly followed by a cry of rage that the latter seemed an echo of the first, and then the jaguar again sprang upward and forward, fully ten feet into the air before it descended at Ronie's feet, snarling, twisting, struggling, in an outbreak of fury frightful to behold.
Trembling lest his shot had only served to add to the volcano of ferocity burning in the brute's form, Ronie would have failed to retreat quickly enough to escape its claws had not Jack's ringing voice warned him of his danger. The next moment his companion was beside him.
"You fixed the creature," declared Jack, "but it dies hard. Give it plenty of room, lad, we can afford to."
Then, in silence they watched the dying struggles of the brute, as it beat earth and space with its lacerated body, now groveling in the dust, now bounding upward in blind endeavor to reach an enemy it could not see, each moment growing weaker, until it lay at last quite still, scarcely less terrible to look upon in death than it had been in life.