The puma was quiet the moment the dog was out of his sight. Doubtless he regarded Clare as his champion in distress, and blessed him for the removal of that which his soul hated. But, alas, mischief was already afoot! Gunn, waked by the roaring, came flying with his whip, and the remnants of poor Pummy’s excitement were enough to betray him to the eyes of the tamer of caged animals. Clare would have recognized by the roar itself the individual in trouble; but Glum Gunn had little knowledge even of the race. He counted the couguar a coward, because he showed no resentment. A man may strike him or wound him, and he will make no retaliation; he will even let a man go on to kill him, and make no defence beyond moans and tears. But Gunn knew nothing of these facts; he only knew that this puma would not touch _him_. He was not aware that if he turned the two into the arena of the show, the puma would kill the grizzly; or that in their own country, the puma persecutes the jaguar as if he hated him for not being like himself, the friend of man: the Gauchos of the Pampas call him “The Christians’ Friend.” Gunn did not even know that the horse is the puma’s favourite food: he will leap on the back of a horse at full speed, with his paws break his neck as he runs, and come down with him in a rolling heap. Neither did he know that, while submissive to man--as if the maker of both had said to him, “Slay my other creatures, but do my anointed no harm,”--he could yet upon occasion be provoked to punish though not to kill him. Glum Gunn rushed across the area, jumped into the cage of the puma, and began belabouring him with his whip. The beast whimpered and wept, and the brute belaboured him. Clare heard the changed cry of his friend, and came swooping like the guardian angel he was. When he saw the patient creature on his haunches like a dog, accepting Gunn’s brutality without an attempt to escape it--except, indeed, by dodging any blows at his head so cleverly that the ruffian could not once hit it--he bounded to the cage, wild with anger and pity. But Gunn stood with his back against the door of it, and he was reduced to entreaty. “Oh, sir! sir!” he cried, in a voice full of tears; “it was all my fault! Abby came to look for me, and I didn’t know Pummy disliked dogs!” “Do you tell me, you rascal, that you were down among the hanimals when I supposed you in your bed?” “Yes, sir, I was. I didn’t know there was any harm. I wasn’t doing anything wrong.” “Hold your jaw! What _was_ you doing?” “I was only in the cage with the puma.” “You was! You have the impudence to tell me that to my face! I’ll teach you, you cotton-face! you milk-pudding! to go corrupting the hanimals and making them not worth their salt!”