hiding-place, where it leisurely devoured it.

"This reminds me," said Bearwarden, "of the old lady who never
completed her preparations for turning in without searching for
burglars under the bed. Finally she found one, and exclaimed in
delight, 'I've been looking for you fifty years, and at last you are
here!' The question is, now that we have found our burglar, what shall
we do with him?"

"I constantly regret not having a rifle," replied Cortlandt, "though it
is doubtful if even that would help us here."

[Illustration: A battle royal on Jupiter.]

"Let us sit down and wait," said Ayrault; "there may be an opening
soon."

Anon a woolly rhinoceros, resembling the Rhinoceros tichorhinus that
existed contemporaneously on earth with the mammoth, came to drink the
water that had partly cooled. It was itself a formidable-looking
beast, but in an instant the monster again rushed from concealment with
the same tremendous speed. The rhinoceros turned in the direction of
the sound, and, lowering its head, faced the foe. The ant's shears,
however, passed beneath the horn, and, fastening upon the left foreleg,
cut it off with a loud snap.

"Now is our chance," exclaimed Cortlandt; "we may kill the brute before
he is through with the rhinoceros."

"Stop a bit, doctor," said Bearwarden. "We have a good record so far;
let us keep up our reputation for being sports. Wait till he can
attend to us."

The encounter was over in less than a minute, three of the rhinoceros's
legs being taken off, and the head almost severed from the body.
Taking up the legs in its mandibles, the murderous creature was
returning to its lair, when, with the cry of "Now for the fray!"
Bearwarden aimed beneath the body and blew off one of the farther
armoured legs, from the inside. "Shoot off the legs on the same side,"
he counselled Ayrault, while he himself kept up a rapid fire.
Cortlandt tried to disconcert the enemy by raining duck-shot on its
scale-protected eyes, while the two rifles tore off great masses of the
horn that covered the enormously powerful legs. The men separated as
they retreated, knowing that one slash of the great shears would cut
their three bodies in halves if they were caught together. The monster
had dropped the remains of the rhinoceros when attacked, and made for
the hunters at its top speed, which was somewhat reduced by the loss of
one leg. Before it came within cutting distance, however, another on
the sa