Dr. Wilkie waved a competent hand and remarked, "I guess they'll hold Andy all right. But let's go into the library and smoke while I tell you a story. Only"—he made an ironical grimace—"only remember this: Andy isn't a he at all. This he is a she. Andy is a female guinea-pig, not a male. At least Andy started out that way. But now"
This is the story Dr. Wilkie told me that night.
2
All this happened rather more than twenty years ago. We were a party of seven going up the Parana on an old stern-wheeler, the property of Don Ramon, one of the seven. We were on our way to the Gran Chaco to get But why bother about that part? We never got there. And that's the story.
It wasn't a lucky trip. Engine trouble, snags, leaks, and what-not, and finally a terrific pampero that drove us up on an island in midstream, and partly wrecked our stern wheel. It also wrecked our only boat and marooned us on the ship, since to get to the shore we would have to wade through shallows populated with greedy jacarés and alligators.
Fortunately some huge floats came down the Parana within a few hours and the rafters stopped to help us make repairs.
And it was then that we first heard of the "Strong One" or the "Strong Demon," as it was called. We told the rafters that we were making for the Gran Chaco and that we intended to leave the ship near Villeta and pole up the Brazo Occidental into the Chaco.
"Santo Cristo!" exclaimed one of the rafters. "Stay away from there, Señores! There is something fearful there!"
"Something fearful?" Don Ramon inquired. "What do you mean?"
"We know not, Señor," the rafter replied. "But there must be some—some demon there. There, at the mouth of the Brazo Occidental is the Peninsula del Circulo where ships and rafts stop for the night. They prefer that to the harbor of San Lorenzo a mile farther down. But now they are afraid!"
"Well, tell us, then," Lassignac demanded in his peremptory way.
"The people told us. They warned us. We must stay in camp and not leave it. But Juan Felista, one of our company, heeded not. He went out into the night—to meet some woman it was—and returned not. In the morning we searched. We found him"—here he shivered and crossed himself—"Señores, his back was broken—like that-!—and his chest crushed in! And he was a very powerful man!"
Arnheimer and Connaughton, the leaders of our party, looked at each other. Arnheimer was a German who had "gone native." Connaughton was an American of certain brilliancy and uncertain passions. His particular crony was Darrell, with whom he had hunted the world and had been hunted in turn.
"Bah!" Darrell exclaimed. "A jaguar, I'll bet!"
"No, no, Señor," the rafter protested. "It could not be a jaguar. A jaguar tears with his claws. And he rips the throat with his teeth! This—this demon—he crushed! Juan Felista was crushed—as you take a reed and crush it in your hands."
Arnheimer was listening carefully. The rest of us were listening, too. But somehow I felt that Arnheimer was at home among these people and would know if they were lying, or simply imagining things. "It sounds strange," he said after a minute's thought. "A snake?—But we have no large snakes any longer. Not in these parts. Farther north, perhaps,
