The greatest adventure
tickle its ramp and make it move on. Captain, fit up a punk with a
three-minute fuse."
Anderson did the quickest job of his life. Fantastic visions of
euthanasia vanished like the fumes of a sickly dream. The men once
more were what nature intended them to be, resourceful, self-reliant,
and instinctively determined to fight to the last breath.
"I'll never sneer at you again, Ole," the Captain promised solemnly.
"You put guts into us. Take your dynamite clear to the back of the
tunnel--mine too. Hurry! Drake, lug back yours and Lane's."
Drake and Ole rejoined the others just as the vast bulk of the monster
blacked out the opening. Still lumbering stupidly forward it passed
the entrance. Daylight again entering the pocket the four crept to the
opening.
Lane peered out. The brainless monster had reached the end of its
path. Further progress along the narrowing ledge being impossible
the brute squatted. In its stupidity it had gone so far that now it
could not turn with safety. A cat in a similar predicament would have
backed instantly. Apparently the solution of its problem was beyond the
monster's infinitesimal intelligence. It just squatted.
The Doctor was entranced. He saw only the creature's mountainous back,
one enormous hind foot with its fifty-inch talons, and the gross,
forty-foot tail tapering out to a blunt nub. But even this much with
the close view of the monster's irregular ridge of fleshy humps and its
blotched hide--it had no armor of horny scales, merely a thick skin
like an elephant's--rotten with festering colonies of parasites, was a
feast to the eyes. He longed to scrape off a specimen of those living
diseases devouring the monster from the nub of its tail to the limit of
visibility. And he did.
Emptying his tobacco box he stepped softly through the entrance. Going
noiselessly up to the nearest patch of disease on the brute's tail he
scraped it with the sharp edge of the open box. The huge beast gave no
sign of feeling. Closing the box carefully Lane estimated the distance
to the entrance to the cave. Then with all his force he kicked the
sorest looking spot on the tail and bolted. He regained the cave just
as the tail struck the cliff like a broadside from a battleship.
"Why the devil did you do that?" Anderson demanded. "Are you crazy?"
"We planned to make it move on, didn't we?" the Doctor asked innocently.
"Not that way. But for your damn foolishness we might have got out of
here unnoticed."
"To tell the truth I wanted to see how long it would take a nervous
impulse to travel the distance from the brute's tail to its head."
"Well, you saw, confound it. Now you've started the machinery. Go out
and stop it."
"I have made a most interesting discovery," the Doctor rhapsodized.
"Zoologists have long suspected that the biggest of the prehistoric
monsters had two main nervous centres, one in the head, the other
somewhere in the rear. One paleontologist of note even went so
far as to assert that reptiles roughly like this one could reason
simultaneously à priori and à posteriori. His theory is brilliantly
confirmed. That brainless lout registered my kick in its tail. It would
have taken a week to get the news up in its head."
"Oh blast your theories!"
The Captain had good grounds for his impatience. Lane's energetic kick
had solved the monster's problem. The whole stupid mass was slowly
backing. In a few moments the brute's brainless head would be opposite
the entrance.
"Draw farther back," Lane advised. "It will probably want to look in.
Sort of reverse reflex action, you know. Where the tail went the head
will follow."
He was right. The last few yards of the bony neck passed, and the flat,
reptilian head blocked the entrance. By tilting it sideways the monster
managed to insinuate its head. The thirty-foot neck followed slowly,
with ample leeway on either side of the entrance.
Just as they became aware of its heavy, slow breathing the monster saw
them in the dim light. In a flash the lethargy of the brute vanished.
The straining neck, lashing from side to side, cut the air like a whip.
The whole vast bulk of the giant hurled itself furiously against the
jarring cliff in an endeavor to follow the head.
Great flakes of the black cement crumbled from the rapidly widening
entrance as the balked hunger of the monster rose to a screaming fury.
Its deafening screeches, like the shrilling of a herd of wild camels,
shook the cave with a terrific din, and its panting breath raised the
gray green dust in stifling clouds.
It was now or never. While Drake struck matches, Anderson rapidly but
coolly prepared two more sticks of dynamite. Then, watching his chance,
he lit all three fuses at once and deftly rolled the sticks over the
floor of the cave so that one lay in the middle and one at either end
of the arc threshed out by the huge serpent head. He overtook the
others before they reached the end of the cave.
When the terrific thunder finally ceased, and the men realized that
their two hundreds had not exploded, they stumbled back through the
dark in a daze to the entrance. In their confusion they blundered
directly into the headless stump of neck--gushing blood like a hydrant.
18
THE ENEMY
They blasted their way out. When the gory job was done they were
scarlet from boots to hair. Crawling out under the smoking shoulders of
the butchered giant they saw Edith circling dangerously near the rocks,
risking herself and the plane in her eagerness to help should her
chance come. They signalled that all was well, and she wheeled farther
from the shattered wall.
During their long descent Edith had lost sight of the men among the
huge blocks littering the sides of the crater. She rediscovered them a
second after she observed the monster starting to back in response to
her father's kick. With her binoculars she made out her father peering
through the entrance to the cave. Until that moment she had not seen
the monster. From her height it was as inconspicuous as an ant crawling
about among the jumbled blocks. Unless one knew exactly where to look
it was safe from detection.
Her feelings as she watched the gigantic brute trying to break its way
into the cave may be imagined. The three muffled detonations in rapid
succession, the third of which blew off the monster's head, reassured
her. Someone's brain was still working in that cave. She saw the entire
carcass of the brute bound from the ledge as if in astonished pain.
Descending with a dead slap that echoed round the crater, the massive
body struck the ledge, the enormous hind legs kicked convulsively, the
powerful tail thrashed the flying blocks of cement, and with a last
shudder from shoulder to rump the monster became still. The neck was
not withdrawn. Guessing what had happened Edith sighed her thankfulness
and stood by to help.
"Well," said Anderson, "is that a day's work? Does anyone want to go
farther down?"
"Let us go down another hundred feet," Drake proposed. "So far we have
passed only half a dozen blocks showing traces of inscriptions. I
should like if possible to photograph one unbroken record. Ole has a
pocket camera."
"Very well," the Captain agreed. "You and Ole keep in sight of this
ledge while Lane and I take a look round the cave. There may be an ooze
of oil at the back. Didn't you smell petroleum, Doctor, when we were
waiting for that shot to go off?"
"I can't say that I did, but then I was so busy waiting. Drake, why
don't you try that other unbroken bluff over to the left? If our theory
is right you should find inscriptions, if anywhere, either on what was
the surface of the cement before the explosion or on a concealed layer
some inches deeper into the cement. If you can find an unbroken stretch
you will have the revised version of the prehistoric fight. What we
want is the original history. Look for a place where only a few inches
of the outer surface have been flaked off by the explosion."
While Lane and Anderson explored the cave, Drake and Ole descended in
quest of inscriptions. Edith hovered above the climbers like an anxious
robin over her fledglings.
"That's for you," Ole remarked with a grin.
"Mind your own business," Drake snapped.
Reaching the unbroken cliff which Lane had pointed out they found it
blank.
"There's another over there," Ole observed hopefully, indicating a
smooth vertical expanse about a thousand yards to their left.
"Yes, but if we go there we shall be out of sight of the ledge."
"It's safe enough." He glanced up at the circling airplane. "Take my
tip and don't let her see you running away."
With a muttered comment on Ole's meddlesome stupidity Drake started
over the intervening blocks like an excited crab. His impetuosity was
rewarded.
"Hurry up with your camera," he shouted. "This is just what we want."
They regretted keenly that Ole had not packed a hundred pounds of films
instead of his dynamite. Five or six acres of cliff was covered with
representations of monsters in every conceivable posture. Evidently
this was a record of importance.
Both strata of inscriptions were represented on the cliff. In several
places the impact of the bombarding blocks from the eruption had flaked
off great scales from the outer layer of cement, baring the original
inscriptions. The unscarred surface bore the revised version. After
deliberating they decided to photograph the entire cliff in three
dozen sections--the limit of Ole's films. This seemed better than
concentrating on individual inscriptions. Drake hoped from enlargement
of the three dozen pictures to obtain a complete record of everything
on the cliff.
Anderson and Lane meanwhile were busy in the cave. To the Captain's
disappointment they found no trace of oil.
"You have that lake beyond the blowholes," Lane expostulated. "Isn't
that enough?"
"No. I want to endow a school of whales."
"For that rotten pun you deserve to lose everything from your shirt to
your soul. Let us get into the fresh air. This vile dust is choking me."
"It has a mouldy smell, hasn't it?"
"You're right," the Doctor agreed. "I wonder what it is." His interest
was aroused.
"Take some out to the daylight and see. These matches were made by the
devil only to burn my fingers."
Lane scooped up a double handful of the dust and hurried to the
entrance.
"Spores," he announced excitedly.
Although he did not recognize it he had met the enemy.
"I'm no wiser," the Captain remarked.
"These are masses of seeds from some fern-like plant. Lord! I wish I
had a microscope. Haven't you ever seen the underside of a fern frond?"
The Captain nodded. "Well, all that brown stuff on it is millions of
fern seeds finer than dust."
"But this stuff is grayish green."
"That makes it all the more interesting. These are the spores, the life
germs, of some unknown plant. I am sure of it. We must take back all we
can carry. Cram your pockets."
Lane dived into the cave and set the example. Reluctantly enough
Anderson followed suit.
"Over by the wall where we haven't trampled the stuff should be a good
place," Lane continued. "Sift it through your fingers and save anything
not finer than dust."
Presently Lane rose to his feet with an exclamation of delight.
"Look what I've found!"
Anderson followed him to the light. The Doctor was lost in the
contemplation of a tiny desiccated frond of some plant that resembled a
fern yet most decidedly was not a fern. The dried foliage, more like a
rank mould than a decent plant, was of hair-like fineness.
"Where have I seen something like this before?" Lane muttered to
himself. "It was alive. Where the deuce was it?"