yelping our praises yet. August the twenty-eighth--the day
we saw five live iguanodons in a glade of Maple White Land. Put it
down in your diary, my young friend, and send it to your rag."

"And be ready to get the toe-end of the editorial boot in return," said
Lord John. "Things look a bit different from the latitude of London,
young fellah my lad. There's many a man who never tells his
adventures, for he can't hope to be believed. Who's to blame them?
For this will seem a bit of a dream to ourselves in a month or two.
WHAT did you say they were?"

"Iguanodons," said Summerlee. "You'll find their footmarks all over
the Hastings sands, in Kent, and in Sussex. The South of England was
alive with them when there was plenty of good lush green-stuff to keep
them going. Conditions have changed, and the beasts died. Here it
seems that the conditions have not changed, and the beasts have lived."

"If ever we get out of this alive, I must have a head with me," said
Lord John. "Lord, how some of that Somaliland-Uganda crowd would turn
a beautiful pea-green if they saw it! I don't know what you chaps
think, but it strikes me that we are on mighty thin ice all this time."

I had the same feeling of mystery and danger around us. In the gloom
of the trees there seemed a constant menace and as we looked up into
their shadowy foliage vague terrors crept into one's heart. It is true
that these monstrous creatures which we had seen were lumbering,
inoffensive brutes which were unlikely to hurt anyone, but in this
world of wonders what other survivals might there not be--what fierce,
active horrors ready to pounce upon us from their lair among the rocks
or brushwood? I knew little of prehistoric life, but I had a clear
remembrance of one book which I had read in which it spoke of creatures
who would live upon our lions and tigers as a cat lives upon mice.
What if these also were to be found in the woods of Maple White Land!

It was destined that on this very morning--our first in the new
country--we were to find out what strange hazards lay around us. It
was a loathsome adventure, and one of which I hate to think. If, as
Lord John said, the glade of the iguanodons will remain with us as a
dream, then surely the swamp of the pterodactyls will forever be our
nightmare. Let me set down exactly what occurred.

We passed very slowly through the woods, partly because Lord Roxton
acted as scout before he would let us advan