oon as I had
stretched myself beside Ajor.

During the three days which followed, our progress was exasperatingly
slow. I doubt if we made ten miles in the entire three days. The
country was hideously savage, so that we were forced to spend hours at
a time in hiding from one or another of the great beasts which menaced
us continually. There were fewer reptiles; but the quantity of
carnivora seemed to have increased, and the reptiles that we did see
were perfectly gigantic. I shall never forget one enormous specimen
which we came upon browsing upon water-reeds at the edge of the great
sea. It stood well over twelve feet high at the rump, its highest
point, and with its enormously long tail and neck it was somewhere
between seventy-five and a hundred feet in length. Its head was
ridiculously small; its body was unarmored, but its great bulk gave it
a most formidable appearance. My experience of Caspakian life led me
to believe that the gigantic creature would but have to see us to
attack us, and so I raised my rifle and at the same time drew away
toward some brush which offered concealment; but Ajor only laughed, and
picking up a stick, ran toward the great thing, shouting. The little
head was raised high upon the long neck as the animal stupidly looked
here and there in search of the author of the disturbance. At last its
eyes discovered tiny little Ajor, and then she hurled the stick at the
diminutive head. With a cry that sounded not unlike the bleat of a
sheep, the colossal creature shuffled into the water and was soon
submerged.

As I slowly recalled my collegiate studies and paleontological readings
in Bowen's textbooks, I realized that I had looked upon nothing less
than a diplodocus of the Upper Jurassic; but how infinitely different
was the true, live thing from the crude restorations of Hatcher and
Holland! I had had the idea that the diplodocus was a land-animal, but
evidently it is partially amphibious. I have seen several since my
first encounter, and in each case the creature took to the sea for
concealment as soon as it was disturbed. With the exception of its
gigantic tail, it has no weapon of defense; but with this appendage it
can lash so terrific a blow as to lay low even a giant cave-bear,
stunned and broken. It is a stupid, simple, gentle beast--one of the
few within Caspak which such a description might even remotely fit.

For three nights we slept in trees, finding no caves or other