She looked to one and then the other side of the trail, with that profound attention of eyes and ears peculiar to animals lying in wait, for whom the faint rustle of a leaf can be a decisive sign of life or death.

This went on for a while. All of a sudden the animal’s gaze came to rest on a point at the edge of the woods. She extended her head still farther, as if to look better at what she saw, and then, lowering it slowly to ground level, with her snout against the earth she let out a muffled, sad, and deathly roar, which sent a chill of anguish into the hearts of the men.

“I don’t see anything,” muttered the traveler. “It must be a scent.”

“Of people?”

“No; she wouldn’t roar that way . . . Still . . .”

“She’s afraid, boss . . .”

“Right, and in the case of a scent she wouldn’t be—especially if she smelled humans,” he concluded, with a delicate smile we’ve already noted when he spoke of her on other occasions.

Meanwhile the lioness had begun to move cautiously ahead, without lifting her snout from the earth, and howling ceaselessly.

“Now I know what it is!” shouted the traveler suddenly. “Divina, come here, Divina! It’s going to bite her!”

The Indian shuddered.

“Yes, it’s a snake. A month ago I heard that same complaint of hers from far away, and she came in with her snout horribly swollen . . . Divina!”

The two men jumped forward, and with a shove the traveler drove the lioness aside. They were already halfway through the woods and there, on the red earth, they saw a black viper—a ñacaniná—with its neck erect and ready to spring upon the first creature to come near.

These ñacaninás, serpents two or even three meters long, are terribly aggressive and afraid of nothing. As soon as they sense they’re being attacked they fall upon the attacker, be the latter a man, a dog, or a wild animal. And not only that: they pursue, dashing with incredible speed after whatever has annoyed them; and since they take cover stealthily, these black snakes are the most appalling residents of the jungle.

For all that, the lioness had no desire to give up the fight. Her owner just barely restrained her, worried to death, since with one more step his Divina would cause the serpent to strike out against her, and there’s no antidote in the world for the venom of the ñacaniná.

“Guaycurú, the machete! I can’t hold her anymore!”

The Indian understood. With lightning speed he pulled out his machete and in one leap was between the pair and the ñacaniná. Then he took a step ahead and the neck of the snake contracted. The lioness, between the arms of her master who was holding her around the neck, was roaring as she struggled to get free.

“Quick! She’s getting away!” he had time to yell in desperation. A second later the lioness was leaping at the serpent. But the Indian, with frightening calm, had taken another step forward, and as the ñacaniná came at him, extended straight-out like a spear, he made a quick move with his wrist that was almost imperceptible. When the lioness fell on the serpent, all you could see was a black body flip-flopping in horrible contractions among the feet of the beast. But now it had no head; the machete had sliced it off without a jolt, with no roughness at all, solely by way of a marvel of presence of mind and hand.

Finally! The men let out a sigh, now free of that second ordeal of their gloomy nocturnal expedition. The lioness, with two silent bites, had torn up the still convulsive body of her enemy. Now quiet, she joined her master, and the three set out on their trip again.

The storm had passed, but the sky, still cloudy, remained profoundly black. In that murky darkness the somber wayfarers had no guide but the scarcely visible line of the trail, and above all their keen backwoods intuition.

They were walking in single file, with no vacillation; and from a distance someone who’d been watching them would have seen, in the distressing forsakenness of the jungle, two greenish lights, the two awful shining dots of the jungle, that guided the somber trio’s nocturnal progress.

In the meantime, and while their strange adventure continues on its course, let’s say a few words about our characters, so as to understand the frightful drama which was coming to a head.

III

On a certain summer afternoon, at three o’clock, at the peak of an oppressively hot siesta-time, two sweaty men were waiting on the bank of the river for the steamboat that came upstream against its racing current. The two were Yucas Alves, owner of a logging camp four leagues from the shore, and his overseer.

When the steamboat had come to a stop, a scow moved off from her side, boarded by a passenger dressed in white.

When the craft landed, Alves went ahead to meet the passenger.

“Are you Longhi?” he asked him—in Spanish, but with a very thick Portuguese accent.

“I am,” replied the other simply, looking calmly at the repulsive face of the owner of the logging camp.

“You’ve been highly recommended to me,” added the latter. “Do you know your work well?”

“Yes, I’ve been a lumber inspector for fourteen years in Misiones.”

“If you’re not too demanding, I think you’ll be satisfied here.”

“I hope so.”

Four hours later they were entering the camp. The work of inspecting the lumber cut and trimmed by the axes, of plunging day after day into the bush, of moving ceaselessly from one place to another, of wasting away from heat and mosquitoes, is appallingly hard. The newly hired inspector, however, had energy enough for every trial, and within his lean body concealed extraordinary physical strength.

Things went well at the beginning. But little by little he began to notice the atrocious cruelties that prevailed in the camp. Those who know what happens in almost all logging camps will understand perfectly what is here undisclosed; and those who are unaware are better off to remain so forever.

Alves was the prototypical despot, irate, cowardly, cheap, cruel to the point of refinement, and possessed of an iron will.

At the end of the first month Longhi understood that he wouldn’t last there very long. At the end of the second, he was certain that Alves disliked him and that something serious was going to happen. And the clash did in fact take place, with regard to some logs that were badly measured, according to Alves.

“It seems to me that you showed more promise at the beginning,” the owner told him dryly.

“That’s possible,” replied the other, keeping calm.

“It’s your duty to do things well,” Alves cut in rudely.

Longhi looked him straight in the eye, and retorted, turning pale:

“My duty is to do what I can.” His voice was calmer still.

“Your duty is to keep your mouth shut!” bellowed Alves, flaring up in anger.

The livid inspector slowly put his hands in his pockets, with a composure much more terrible than his contained anger, and said to him, enunciating clearly:

“It seems to me that you’re mistaken, Sr. Alves.”

“. . . ?”

“I’m no common laborer.”

“Eh?”

“And no hireling like those others . . .”

Alves made a motion, but at once Longhi added, still looking at him:

“. . . and I swear to you that the first move you make to draw your revolver, by my mother’s ghost I swear to you that I’ll blow off the lid of your brains.”

The inspector didn’t even reach for his own pistol to back up his threat; his look was enough.