As the days passed Miguel’s desperation increased. All thoughts of malevolence vanished. If he found David now he would rush to him joyfully. It would mean companionship, perhaps even salvation. Anything, anyone to banish the horror of a living death alone in the treacherous forest. It was at this point that Miguel heard the twittering of the ant wrens, and well he knew what their excited cries meant. They had discovered an ant army on the march and had gathered in numbers to profit by the marauders’ depredations. The sound of their calls, even if they were only birds, came as a blessed relief to the man driven frantic by the breathless silence of the forest. To see, to be near any living thing, would be infinitely better than the dread loneliness. He would go toward the chorus of voices that his fever-dulled brain pictured as possible saviors of his reason. Before long he reached the far-flung lines of ants that served as scouts on the flanks of the main army. The organization and discipline of the insects was as wonderful as it was terrible to the victims, for it precluded all possibility of escape. Miguel stopped to look at the black ribbons flowing over the forest floor. Thin lines branched off from the main arteries every few yards; these explored each leaf and crevice, ascending even to the tops of the tallest trees in their insatiable quest of victims. In front of the sweeping mass and on both sides was a horde of terror-stricken creeping, crawling and hopping creatures making frantic efforts to escape from inevitable doom. There were rhinoceros beetles with huge antler-like growths on their fore-bodies; centipedes eight inches long; scorpions wildly lashing their tails armed with poisonous curved stings; great hairy tarantulas, wood frogs, and many other living things. Some crawled to the topmost branches of the lower undergrowth of ferns and like vegetation and remained there motionless during a brief respite; but they were always discovered and routed by the ants. Others fled precipitately up the tree-trunks; and still others came out of their hiding-places only to curl up sullenly and to await the end. Suddenly the ant army divided. Scouts had in some mysterious manner brought back the intelligence of an unusual find and the main column had promptly responded with reinforcements. Miguel saw and understood. At the same time, the ant birds that had first attracted his attention set up a furious chatter. Here was the opportunity to see something of an unusual nature. Miguel crawled upon a great prostrate tree-trunk in order to have a better view of what was going on. It was toward this log that the ants were rushing in a black sheet. And it was there the birds were scolding in anguish.