Face-To-Face With The Mother Jag

We were in deep trouble. The mother jaguar had come for her kid. I searched frantically for my .45. From the duffle bag I pulled rolls of film, yards of bandages, and dozens of towels, scattering a box of gift cigars over the floor before I finally laid eager fingers on the weapon. Cocking it, I stepped outside. And there, just beyond the dying campfire, stood a female jaguar. Her great powerful head was up, sniffing the air, and her tail lashed slowly back and forth, every muscle poised and ready. She was magnificent!

Almost at once she must have caught my movement, for her head lowered and her lips curled back, showing keen, white fangs, while those greenish yellow eyes seemed to hold a light that came neither from the moonlight above nor the campfire at her feet. I made no move, and at one smashing blow the great beast flattened our stockade level with the ground. With a cry almost human in its gladness the kitten ran toward her and rubbed himself against the soft fur of the mother's side. A kind of purring, questioning sound quivered in the mother's throat as she lowered her head and licked the youngster, then lifted it gently by the loose folds of skin about its neck. Not once a sign of fear. She was superbly beyond fear.

To me who stood there watching, she typified that imperishable quality of wild motherhood that dares all, and, if need be, sacrifices all. Again those greenish yellow eyes regarded us. Like a brooding, solitary statue she stood there, silhouetted by the campfire's last faltering flames against that silent, moonlit jungle her long, powerful body poised and ready. From beside me came the sound of Pedro's quickened breathing, and in a voice that trembled with excitement he whispered, "Shoot, Senor. Shoot quickly."

Still I stood hesitant, with cocked revolver. So easy a shot. And somehow at that very moment I wanted that kitten more than all-else. A pressing of the finger, a shot, and he was mine. But the finger wouldn't move. And that is my last memory—two yellow, gleaming eyes in the firelight there on the edge of the jungle, and a spotted kitten that hung very helpless but confident from the great, powerful mouth.

In the next moment they were gone. Only the fading embers that lighted up an empty jungle clearing and the pious whisper of Pedro behind me. "Gracias a dios," he murmured, and made a shadowy sign of the cross.