"I hope it wasn't the Captain they're eating," Augustus said. "It'd be a pity to come all this way and lose him to the buzzards." "It wasn't the Captain," Call said--through the thin bushes he glimpsed what was left of the body of an old woman. The vultures were reluctant to leave. Two lit on boulders nearby, while the shadows of the others flickered across the little clearing where the body lay.

"Must have been a cougar, to rip her up like that," Gus said. "Would a cougar do that?" "I guess one did," Call said. "See the tracks? He was a big one." They dismounted and inspected the area for a few minutes, while the vultures wheeled overhead.

"I've never seen a lion track that big," Augustus commented.

A rawhide rope lay not far from the corpse.

"Why would an old woman be way out here alone?" Gus wondered. "All she had was this rope. Where was she going?" "I guess we could pile some rocks on her," Call said. "I hate just to leave a body laying out." "Woodrow, she's mostly et anyway," Gus said. "Why spoil the buzzards' picnic?" "I know, but it's best to bury people," Call said. "I believe she was crippled--look at her hip." While they were heaping rocks on the corpse Call got an uneasy feeling. He couldn't say what prompted it.

"Something's here, I don't know what," he said, when they resumed their cautious ride into the canyon.

"It might be that cougar, hoping for another old woman," Gus said.

A few moments later, Augustus saw the jaguar. He was not as convinced as Call that Ahumado and his men had left, and was scanning the rocky ledges above them, looking for any sign of life. Probably if the old bandit had gone, he would have left a rear guard. He didn't want to be ambushed, as they had been the first time they entered the Yellow Canyon, and he took particular care to scan the higher ledges, where a rifleman could hide and get off an easy shot.

On one of the higher ledges he saw something that didn't register clearly with his eye. There was something there that was hard to see--he stopped his horse to take a longer look and when he did the jaguar stepped into full view.

"Woodrow, look up there," he said.

Call could not immediately see the jaguar, but then the animal moved and he saw him clearly.

"I think it's a jaguar," Augustus said.

"I never expected to see one." "I imagine that's what got the old woman," Call said.

For a moment, surprised, they were content to watch the jaguar, but their mounts were far from content. They put up their ears and snorted; they wanted to run but the rangers held them steady.

The jaguar stood on the rocky ledge, looking down at them.

"Do you think you can get off a shot?" Call asked. "If we don't kill it, it might get one of these horses, when it comes nightfall." Augustus began to lift his rifle out of the scabbard. Though both men were watching the jaguar, neither saw it leave. It was simply gone. By the time Augustus raised his rifle there was nothing to shoot.

"He's gone--it's bad news for the horses," Call said.

"I'll never forget seeing him," Augustus said. "He acted like he owned the world." "I expect he does--th world, at least," Call said. "I've never seen an animal just disappear like that." All afternoon, as they worked their way carefully through the narrow canyon, they often looked upward, hoping for another glimpse of the jaguar--but the jaguar was seen no more.

"Just because we don't see him don't mean he's not following us," Call said. "We have to keep the horses close tonight." Suddenly the canyon opened into the space they remembered from the time they were ambushed. The cliffso above them were pitted with holes and little caves. They stopped for a few minutes, examining the caves closely, looking for the glint of a rifle barrel or any sign of life.

But they saw nothing, only some eagles soaring across the face of the cliff.

"We ought to walk in, but we can't leave the horses," Call said. "That jaguar might be following us." "I think this camp is deserted," Augustus said. "I think we came too late." They rode slowly into the deserted camp, a sandy place, empty, windy. Only a ring of cold campfires and a few scraps of tenting were left to indicate that people in some numbers had once camped there.

Besides the tenting and the campfires there was one other thing that suggested the presence of humans: the skinning post, with a crossbar at the top, from which a badly decomposed, mangled, and half-eaten corpse still hung.

"Oh my Lord," Augustus said. He could barely stand to look at the corpse, and yet he couldn't look away.

"They say Ahumado had people skinned, if he didn't like them," Call said. "I supposed it was just talk, but I guess it was true." "I ain't piling no rocks on that," Gus said emphatically. The bloated thing hanging from the crossbar skinning post bore little resemblance now to anything human.

"I'll pass myself, this time," Call said.

He did not want to go near the stinking thing on the post.

In the pit, not far from where the two rangers stood, Inish Scull had slipped into a half sleep. Many times he had dreamed of rescue, so many that now, when he heard the voices of Call and McCrae, in his half sleep, he discounted the ^ws. They were just more dream voices; he would not let them tempt him into hope.

"We ought to search these caves," Call said.

"They might have had the Captain here. If we could find a scrap of his uniform or his belt or something at least it would be a thing we could take to his wife." "You look in the caves, Woodrow," Gus said. "I'll stand guard, in case that jaguar shows up." "All right," Call said.

As Call started for the largest of the caves at the base of the cliff, Augustus noticed the pit.

Because of the shadows stretching out from the pit it had been hard to see from where they entered the camp.

Curious, Augustus took a step or two closer--a stench hit him, but a stench less powerful than that which came from the swollen black flesh hanging from the skinning post. He stepped to the edge of the pit--f the stench it seemed to him that the pit might be a place where Ahumado tossed his dead. It could be that Captain Scull's body might be there; or what was left of it.

He looked into the pit but did not at first see the small, almost naked man sitting with his head bent down in the shadows near one wall of the pit.