While they were thus engaged, Jack’s rifle spoke sharply. He had caught sight of the odd animal swinging to the tree beyond that to which it had already transferred itself.
There was a great threshing among the branches and an odd sort of squealing cry.
“Yes; but I’m afraid it’s got entangled in the branches and we’ll lose it after all.”
“I’ll climb up and get it,” volunteered Dick.
But there was no necessity for this. After a minute’s interval a hairy body came crashing and toppling down, landing with a thud at their feet. As Dick had said, the animal was certainly unlike anything the boys had seen up to that time.
It was a hairy creature, about the size of a large monkey. Its nose was snub, its eyes large and round, and it apparently had no ears. But strangest of all, in among its coarse hairs grew a sort of moss of almost the exact hue of the vegetation adhering to the tree trunks.
The legs were long and powerful, and each foot bore three strong, curved claws, like meat-hooks. It was not until the professor saw the creature that they knew what it was.
The animal was the three-toed sloth, which travels upside down among the tree tops of tropical Brazil like a fly hanging to the ceiling. The moss-like growth amidst its coarse hair was real moss, declared the professor, and was one of those inscrutable devices of nature for protection purposes, rendering the animal almost invisible when swinging against a tree trunk.
“And the Meggy-thing-um-a-jig is the big cousin of this fellow?” asked Tom.
“He is radder de greadt, greadt, greadt gross fader,” responded the German with a smile.
“But surely the giant sloth doesn’t swing from trees?” asked Jack.
“Nein. Idt is peliefed dot he lifs in swampy places undt has a foodt broadt undt flat. Idt is only his grandchildren dot took to der trees.”
“Well, boys,” declared Captain Sprowl, when they exhibited Jack’s trophy to him, “that’s a sign of good luck. We’ve only got to find a critter like that, only forty times as big, and resemblin’ him ‘cos he’s so different, and you get fifteen thousand dollars. It’s jes’ as easy as rollin’ off’n a log—I don’t think.”
With which profound speech the captain continued his culinary tasks with vehemence.