Crouched on the ground--her tail lashing the earth like a cat's when
it is about to spring--was a huge tawny lioness--her cruel green
eyes fixed full upon them.




CHAPTER XV

THE FLYING MEN


For a breath the boys stood petrified and then Billy hastily slipped
a cartridge into the rifle he had taken from the dead slave-trader.
But even as he did so the lioness curved her lithe body, as if her
backbone had been a steel spring, and launched her great form
through the air.

That minute would have been Billy's last--for in his excitement he
pulled the trigger before he had brought the rifle to his shoulder
and the bullet whistled harmlessly into the air--but for a strange
thing that now occurred.

While the tawny brute was in mid-spring, her cruel claws outspread
to maul the unhappy reporter, a great spear whizzed straight at her
and buried itself in her heart just behind the left shoulder. With
a howl of pain the brute fell short in her spring and, before she
could make another attack, Billy had reloaded and sent a bullet
crashing between her eyes. As the lioness rolled over dead, the
tall form of a. savage sprung out of the jungle and stood for a