Ken held up his finger to enjoin silence. With that he stole cautiously forward, the others noiselessly at his heels. The thicket was lined with well-beaten trails, and by following these and stooping low it was possible to go ahead without rustling the brush. Owing to the gathering twilight Ken could not see very far. When he stopped to listen he heard the faint crackling of dead brush and soft, quick steps. He had not proceeded far when pattering footsteps halted him. Ken dropped to his knee. The boys knelt behind him, and Pepe whispered. Peering along the trail Ken saw what he took for a wildcat. Its boldness amazed him. Surely it had heard him, but instead of bounding into the thicket it crouched not more than twenty-five feet away. Ken took a quick shot at the gray huddled form. It jerked, stretched out, and lay still. Then a crashing in the brush, and gray streaks down the trail told Ken of more game. “There they go. Peg away at them,” called Ken. George and Hal burned a good deal of powder and sent much lead whistling through the dry branches, but the gray forms vanished in the jungle. “We got one, anyway,” said Ken. He advanced to find his quarry quite dead. It was bigger than any wildcat Ken had ever seen. The color was a grayish yellow, almost white, lined and spotted with black. Ken lifted it and found it heavy enough to make a good load. “He’s a beauty,” said Hal. “Pepe says it’s a tiger-cat,” remarked George. “There are two or three kinds besides the big tiger. We may run into a lot of them and get some skins.” It was almost dark when they reached camp. While Pepe and Hal skinned the tiger-cat and stretched the pelt over a framework of sticks the other boys got supper. They were all very hungry and tired, and pleased with the events of the day. As they sat round the camp-fire there was a constant whirring of water-fowl over their heads and an incessant hum of insects from the jungle. “Ken, does it feel as wild to you here as on Buckskin Mountain?” asked Hal. “Oh yes, much wilder, Hal,” replied his brother. “And it’s different, somehow. Out in Arizona there was always the glorious expectancy of to-morrow’s fun or sport. Here I have a kind of worry--a feeling--” But he concluded it wiser to keep to himself that strange feeling of dread which came over him at odd moments. “It suits me,” said Hal. “I want to get a lot of things and keep them alive. Of course, I want specimens. I’d like some skins for my den, too. But I don’t care so much about killing things.” “Just wait!” retorted George, who evidently took Hal’s remark as a reflection upon his weakness. “Just wait! You’ll be shooting pretty soon for your life.” “Now, George, what do you mean by that?” questioned Ken, determined to pin George down to facts. “You said you didn’t really know anything about this jungle. Why are you always predicting disaster for us?”