An expedition exploring the Amazon jungle comes across a jungle goddess who lives among the animals and fears none of them--and apparently has found the secret of eternal youth.

American Jim Warburton crashes his plane in the Amazon jungle and promptly falls in love with Christine Ridgegway , a mysterious huntress who rescues him and his passengers. Christine determinedly evades Jim's courtship and advances, making Dr. Karen Lawrence suspect she has a tragic reason for fleeing to Rio to escape Jim. Karen and Jim follow her to Rio de Janeiro and, while dining in a restaurant, see a man named Sebastian Ortega greet Christine. She screams, faints and falls into a long illness. Later, Ortega tells Jim that he knew Mrs. Ridgeway, whom he assumes was Christine's mother, when she was honeymooning in the jungle---a couple of decades ago---with her adventurer-husband, Anthony Ridgeway. Although terrified of animals, Mrs. Ridgeway had saved her husband's life when a panther attacked him in the same jungle where Christine was hunting when Jim's airplane crashed. She plunged into hysteria, following the incident, and returned to the United States. Jim thinks this a good story but fails to comprehend why a bad experience in the Brazilian jungle should make Christine fear falling in love. Christine goes to California and Jim follows her. There, he meets Anthony and is told an incredible tale; The Christine that Jim has fallen in love with is not the young girl Jim thinks she is. Christine is the honeymoon bride who saved Anthony's more than twenty years ago. Now, nearly fifty-years-old, she has been in a state of shock since the panther-attack---a state that has made her ageless. Her changeless beauty had became a curse when her grown daughter's fiancée made violent love to her against her will. The daughter, blaming her mother's eternal youth, killed herself. Anthony's critical evaluations of her cursed beauty led to her leaving him and returning to the jungle, where Jim met her. There's still one major twist left before this one ends.—Les Adams <[email protected]>