In the Morning of Time. Roberts Charles G. D.

and twigs. A similar but lighter platform overhead made him a roof that was anything but waterproof, and a few bushy branches served for walls. Such as it was, it was at least the beginning of a home. He loved it; and in defense of the little hairy brown mate and downy brown baby who shared it with him he would have fought both Dinosaur and Dinoceras with his naked hands.

      For some days nothing more was seen of the two Dinosaurs, the King being probably occupied, in the depths of the jungle, with the nursing of his wrath and his hurts. The herds of the Dinoceras, meanwhile, kept to their meadows, having better drinking-water in a slow stream which traversed the pastures than in the brackish tide of the lagoon.

      Then came a morning when the brown mother, babe on arm, was gathering plantains not far from the waterside, while the man chanced to be away exploring the limits of his new domain. The woman looked up suddenly; and there, almost upon her, was the giant horror of the Dinosaur, his cold, expressionless eyes gaping at her immovably from their goggling sockets. She turned to flee; and there was the monster’s mate, not quite so huge, but equally appalling. Behind her was an impenetrable wall of thorn-acacia. There was only one refuge–a tree, all too small, but lofty enough to take her beyond the reach of those horrifying horned and immobile masks. Up the little tree she went, nimbly as a monkey, and crouched shivering in a crotch. The slender trunk swayed beneath her weight. She clutched the brown baby to her heart, and sent shriek after shriek through the glades.

      A mile away the man heard it. He gave one deep-chested shout in answer, and then came running in silence, saving his breath.

      But it was a mile he had to come. The female Dinosaur, the more instantly malignant of the two, hurled herself upon the trunk of the tree. It swayed horribly, but did not yield at once. Thereupon the two began to root beneath it with their horns, having often used this method to obtain fruits which were above their reach. The tree leaned far over. The giant straddled it as a moose straddles a poplar sapling, and bore it down irresistibly. Its top touched earth.

      The brown mother sprang forth with a tremendous leap, clearing the horns with a twist which nearly broke her back. She thought herself free. And then a gigantic tail struck her and felled her senseless. A second more, and the female Dinosaur’s great foot crushed her and the wailing babe out of existence together.

      The swift end of the tragedy the man had seen as he came racing down a stretch of open glade. He did not need to look at the awful thing beneath the monster’s foot to know that all was over. Beyond one hoarse groan he uttered not a sound. But blindly–for he had never yet practised such an art–he hurled his ragged club at the nearest monster. It rebounded like a baby’s rattle from the vast horn-armored head. But a lucky chance had guided it. One of its sharp, splintered knots struck fairly in the Dinosaur’s eye, and smashed it in the socket. She roared with agony; and the two, side by side, came lunging towards him.

      The man ran back slowly. His despairing grief had changed suddenly into a cold hate and a resolve for vengeance. It was so easy for him to outstrip these lumbering monsters who were spouting their fetid, musky breath close upon his heels. He stumbled carefully at every other step. He let them feel that at the next stride they would transfix him. He led them on, the earth shaking beneath their tread, till another fifty feet would have brought them out upon the skirts of the meadow. But at this point, wearied by such an unwonted burst of effort, the King halted sulkily. He had not had an eye put out. He wanted to give it up. But his mate came right on, thirsting for her revenge.

      The man was not content with her pursuit alone. Spurting ahead, he gathered up two handfuls of sand and gravel, whirled about, and drove them with all his strength into the King’s cold eyes. It worked. Smarting and half blinded, the monster forgot his weariness, and came charging along furiously in the trail of his mate.

      They were stupid, these Lizard Kings, with more brains in their pelvic arches than in their giant skulls. Because the puny man-creature went stumbling almost within reach of their beaks, they imagined they were going to catch him. That he would go dodging around thickets which they crashed over blindly, and would then return to present himself again deliberately before them, did not strike them as at all suspicious. Their dull but relentless hate once thoroughly aroused, as long as he was in sight and they could move the mighty columns of their legs, they would pursue him.

      Through the last heavy fringe of bush and leafage they pursued him, and with a great crashing of branches came out upon the open, short-grass meadow. Still the man-creature stumbled on, straight out into the open, and still they followed, raging silently.

      The black herds of the Dinoceras stopped feeding all at once, and raised their vicious heads and stared.

      There were countless cows in the herd, horned like the bulls, but smaller, and without the rending tusks. The cows, at this season, all had young. After one long, comprehending stare at the two gigantic mottled shapes bearing down upon them, the herd put itself in motion. The man-creature they hardly noticed, he seemed so insignificant.

      With eyes that took in everything, coolly and sagaciously, the man observed that the motion of the herd was an ordered one. The black beasts were deftly sorting themselves out to meet the danger. The bulls came thrusting themselves to the front–a terrific array which might have struck panic to the hearts of even the colossal Dinosaurs had they not been too stupid with rage for any new impression to pierce their brains. The cows, meanwhile, pushing their calves into a huddled mass behind them, formed themselves into a second array, a reserve of less mass and strength than the ranks of the bulls, but of an invincible mother-fury.

      The man, with a wise fearlessness, ran on straight through the gathering line of bulls, the nearest of whom thrust at him carelessly and then paid him no more heed. Behind their ranks, hidden now from the sight of his pursuers, he swerved, avoiding the line of cows, ran sharply to the right, and came back around the end of the line to see what was going to happen. For all his grief, his heart was thumping almost to suffocation as his titanic vengeance moved to its end.

      When the two raging Dinosaurs lost sight of their prey they stopped short, stupidly bewildered. Then they noticed the array of black beasts charging upon them. This, in their mad mood, afforded a new object to their rage. They plunged wallowing forward to meet the new foe. And at that moment the man, appearing round the wing of the black ranks, halted abruptly, and laughed.

      It was a strange, disconcerting sound, that laughter, and the nearest Dinoceras, disturbed by it, edged away and crowded against his neighbor’s flank in an inexplicable apprehension.

      The next moment the stupendous opposing forces met with a shock that, to the man’s overstrung senses, seemed to make the very daylight reel. There was no space for evasion or manœuver. The two ponderous bulks went straight through the ranks of the black bulls, ripping them with beak and horn from shoulder to rump, treading them down like corn, and trampling them under foot as they rolled on. The bulls on either side charged on their flanks, rearing, grunting, squealing insanely and ripping with the massive daggers of their tusks. But as this terrific assault came from both sides at once, the two monsters were in reality supported by it, so that they were not swept off their feet. Almost without a check, as it seemed, they ploughed straight on, lashing with their mighty tails, and leaving a trail of disabled victims behind them, and so wore their way right up to the line of the cows.

      But here they were stopped. The calves were behind that line.

      The black mothers simply heaped themselves upon those impaling horns and armored fronts, bearing them down, smothering, engulfing them in an avalanche of screaming and monstrous bulks. The bulls, meanwhile, were rending, tearing, stabbing, on flank and rear. The two Dinosaurs disappeared from view. The dreadful mountain of writhing, gigantic shapes heaved convulsively for some minutes. Then the great columns that were the Dinosaurs’ legs seemed to crumble beneath the weight. The awful, battling heap sagged, fell apart, and let in the glare of the sunlight upon what had been the two colossal monarchs of the early world. The dreadful, unrecognizable things still moved, still heaved and twisted ponderously among the bodies of their slain, but it was mere aimless paroxysm, the blind life struggling to resist its final expulsion and dissipation. The wounded Dinoceras drew away, to die or recover as curious Nature might decree. The surviving cows returned to assure themselves that their young had come to no hurt. And the great black bulls who had escaped serious injury in the struggle