The prince looked in the direction indicated by his attendant, and there, not twenty feet away, beheld, crouched on an overhanging limb, a ferocious looking beast, with eyes which shone like balls of fire fixed menacingly upon them. The animal's lips were parted, showing its great ugly teeth, which caused a savage grin to overspread its fierce and threatening visage. Its tail, cat-like and menacing, was moving slowly to and fro; and, altogether, the monster's appearance was anything but reassuring to contemplate. The situation was, indeed, alarming.
The position of the animal was such that, to get away, the prince and Oza would have been compelled to pass almost under it. To have done this would have been to invite an immediate attack, which they could not afford to do in their defenseless condition.
Hualcoyotl recalled having heard some time in his life that such animals would not attack a person whose eyes were kept fixed upon them. The thought suggested the idea that the beast might be kept at bay in this manner until, tiring, it would leave of its own accord. The plan was immediately put into execution, and a peculiar contest began.
The fiercely grinning beast gave stare for stare, and never once turned its eyes away. For a full half hour, which seemed an age to the prince, the battle of the eyes went on, and still there was no letting up in the belligerent attitude of his fierce looking adversary.
Thus matters stood when there came a sudden thud-like sound, followed by a terrible howl from the animal, which leaped from its position into the ravine, falling dead almost at the feet of the imprisoned fugitives.
The long, uninterrupted stare into the eyes of the snarling beast had proven to be a very trying ordeal to Hualcoyotl; and when it sprang so suddenly into the ravine as if to attack them, he was almost prostrated from the shock given his tensified sensibilities. He quickly recovered when he saw that deliverance, from an unknown and unexpected source, had come to them through the death of the animal. Directly a voice, apparently just above them, was heard to say:
"Menke, ye couldn't have missed that feller no how. Queer the brute 'lowed me to come so close; never moved till I sent the jav'lin right into his ugly carcass. There he lies, sure enough, at the bottom o' the ravine, dead as a stone. Ol' feller, ye got yer everlastin', an' no mistake. Hello! What's that?" was the exclamation which followed the discovery of the prince's quarters. "Looks as ef somebody'd gone to house-keepin'."