The visitors bowed and rushed away, Soncco going with the rest. When they had gone, Stanley turned to Ted. “That man told the truth, but he was excited and exaggerated the facts. We know the worst now.” “You mean that it was a----” “Yes, nothing less than a sabre-toothed tiger--a living example of the kind whose bones we found in the cave in Uti when we were there before. He saw the beast, but the thing that made the greatest impression on him was its shadow on the abrupt mountainside. Heaven only knows where it came from, but we must have opened the passage for it with the dynamite.” “Can it be possible that some of those awful creatures still survive after all the hundreds of years?” Ted asked incredulously. “It must be possible because we have the evidence. And, besides, anything is possible in a place like this. Come to think of it, I know just where it came from; you remember that other valley we saw from the air? That is the place. We are in it for fair now. A more terrible creature never trod the face of the earth. We are to blame for the calamity of turning it loose on these people, and we shall have to find a way of exterminating it; there may be many of them for all we know. What to do is the question. A tiger the size of a cow, and more powerful and ferocious than a dozen of the ordinary kind, is not an antagonist to be sneezed at. Will our troubles never end? We haven’t a rifle; nothing but spears and bows and arrows; they will do about as much good as hailstones.” “I have it,” Ted announced suddenly. “What about the machine-guns on the airplane? We can rig them up on mounts. Each one will be worth twenty rifles.” “Why, of course. That’s just what we’ll do. And we will have our hands full at that. But now, let’s go out and help quiet the people. They are starting their wailing again, and there will be real trouble unless we can soothe them.” CHAPTER XVII ANIMALS OF A BYGONE AGE Ted and Stanley lost no time in going out among the people. The event of a king mingling freely with his subjects, and on foot at that, was without precedent. They encouraged, soothed, and even threatened where necessary. But their presence in the midst of danger in itself had a calming effect on the majority of Indians, and the Americans rose mightily in the estimation of the multitude. “Quizquiz deserted us in time of peril,” they said with an awe akin to adoration; “the new king shares our danger and will vanquish it, just as he drove away the demon of darkness and brought back the sunlight. Long live the new king, the greatest of them all.” Apparently the animals that had invaded the valley had become emboldened by their first onslaught, for toward morning the thunderous roars again rent the silence hovering over the valley. This time they were repeated more frequently and drew nearer with great rapidity. “It is exactly as I thought,” Stanley said. “They are coming from the direction of the gap torn by the dynamite.”