In the morning he could give directions, and allow an assistant to do
the work, while he secured some rest.
There was no moon after early in the evening, when the young queen of
the night disappeared in the west, leaving the bright stars to control
the skies.
The boat continued to make good headway against the current, though at
this season of the year the Magdalena is bank full with the summer
rains, which fall almost every afternoon in a deluge.
A searchlight sent a dazzling shaft of light far ahead on the troubled
surface of the booming flood. This was an absolute necessity, for
otherwise it would have been too dangerous bucking against that tide;
laden as the river was with floating tree trunks of gigantic size, that
had been swept from their resting-places in the lowlands above.
Once Frank had seen a wild animal crouched on one of these great
logs. The boat passed so very close to the floating refuge of the beast
that ere darkness claimed the strange craft with its stranger cargo,
Frank had been able to see the tawny hide of the crouching beast, and
note the quick, jerky motion of its long tail.
Upon hurrying to the pilot house and making inquiries of Felipe he
learned that, just as he suspected, the animal was a jaguar, the most
feared inhabitant of the tropical forests away off at the headwaters of
the Magdalena and Orinoco rivers.
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