There it lay; but not a hundred yards from it we saw another animal approaching it by stealthy steps. We watched it narrowly. "It must be a big cat!" cried Jerry. "No, no; it is a puma--the South American lion," I sang out. "Oh, if we can but get a shot at him it will be fine!" He was so intent on the prospect of a feast off the dead guanaco that he did not see us. He crawled up near it, and then sprang on the carcass. We did not like to have our game destroyed, so we could not help shouting out, "Get off from that, you beast!" Our voices startled the puma, and looking round and seeing us, and Surley approaching with an angry growl, he trotted off down the mountain. We agreed that he was probably an old fellow, and that, having lost his activity, he could not catch the live animals. We both fired, but we were not near enough, and missed him. Away he bounded down the mountain without once stopping to look behind him. "I vote we take some slices out of our friend here," said Jerry. His suggestions were generally very practical. "I don't see why we should run the risk of losing our dinner altogether. The chances are that another of these pumas finds him out and leaves us but poor pickings." I agreed to the wisdom of the suggestion, and so we supplied ourselves with enough meat for all the party. We then raised a mark near our guanaco as we had done before. "That will do famously," said Jerry, finishing the heap with a long piece of cactus. "Now, let us go and look for Fleming. The doctor and guides will be back soon. I'm getting very hungry, I know, and if they don't come I vote we make an attack on the prog baskets without them." "Let us find Fleming and the baskets first," I answered; for my mind began to misgive me about finding him as easily as we had expected. The chase after the guanacoes had led us a long way, and I found it very difficult to calculate distances or the size of objects in that bright atmosphere, where the proportions of all surrounding objects were so vast. Still I did not express my fears to Jerry. We kept our eyes about us, on the chance of falling in with another puma; for we agreed that it would be much better to be able to talk of having killed a lion than even two harmless llamas. On we went for a long time, scrambling over the crags, and precipices, and rough ground. "Where can Fleming have got to?" exclaimed Jerry at last; "I am certain that we are up to the spot where we left him." I thought so likewise. We shouted at the top of our voices, but the puny sounds seemed lost in the vast solitudes which encompassed us. "I think it must have been further on," said I, after I had taken another survey of the country. So on we rushed, keeping our eyes about us on every side.