It was a sad leave-taking as in silence I shook hands with eachof the three remaining men. Even poor Nobs appeared dejected aswe quit the compound and set out upon the well-marked spoor ofthe abductor. Not once did I turn my eyes backward towardFort Dinosaur. I have not looked upon it since--nor in alllikelihood shall I ever look upon it again. The trail lednorthwest until it reached the western end of the sandstonecliffs to the north of the fort; there it ran into a well-definedpath which wound northward into a country we had not as yet explored.It was a beautiful, gently rolling country, broken by occasionaloutcroppings of sandstone and by patches of dense forest relievedby open, park-like stretches and broad meadows whereon grazedcountless herbivorous animals--red deer, aurochs, and infinitevariety of antelope and at least three distinct species of horse,the latter ranging in size from a creature about as large asNobs to a magnificent animal fourteen to sixteen hands high.These creatures fed together in perfect amity; nor did they showany great indications of terror when Nobs and I approached.They moved out of our way and kept their eyes upon us until wehad passed; then they resumed their feeding.

The path led straight across the clearing into another forest,lying upon the verge of which I saw a bit of white. It appearedto stand out in marked contrast and incongruity to all itssurroundings, and when I stopped to examine it, I found thatit was a small strip of muslin--part of the hem of a garment.At once I was all excitement, for I knew that it was a sign leftby Lys that she had been carried this way; it was a tiny bit tornfrom the hem of the undergarment that she wore in lieu of thenight-robes she had lost with the sinking of the liner.Crushing the bit of fabric to my lips, I pressed on even morerapidly than before, because I now knew that I was upon the righttrail and that up to this, point at least, Lys still had lived.

I made over twenty miles that day, for I was now hardened tofatigue and accustomed to long hikes, having spent considerabletime hunting and exploring in the immediate vicinity of camp.A dozen times that day was my life threatened by fearsome creaturesof the earth or sky, though I could not but note that the farthernorth I traveled, the fewer were the great dinosaurs, though theystill persisted in lesser numbers. On the other hand thequantity of ruminants and the variety and frequency ofcarnivorous animals increased. Each square mile of Caspakharbored its terrors.

At intervals along the way I found bits of muslin, and often theyreassured me when otherwise I should have been doubtful of the trailto take where two crossed or where there were forks, as occurredat several points. And so, as night was drawing on, I came to thesouthern end of a line of cliffs loftier than any I had seen before,and as I approached them, there was wafted to my nostrils the pungentaroma of woodsmoke. What could it mean? There could, to my mind,be but a single solution: man abided close by, a higher order ofman than we had as yet seen, other than Ahm, the Neanderthal man.I wondered again as I had so many times that day if it had not beenAhm who stole Lys.

Cautiously I approached the flank of the cliffs, where theyterminated in an abrupt escarpment as though some all powerfulhand had broken off a great section of rock and set it upon thesurface of the earth. It was now quite dark, and as I creptaround the edge of the cliff, I saw at a little distance a greatfire around which were many figures--apparently human figures.Cautioning Nobs to silence, and he had learned many lessons inthe value of obedience since we had entered Caspak, I slunkforward, taking advantage of whatever cover I could find, untilfrom behind a bush I could distinctly see the creatures assembledby the fire. They were human and yet not human. I should saythat they were a little higher in the scale of evolution thanAhm, possibly occupying a place of evolution between that of theNeanderthal man and what is known as the Grimaldi race. Their featureswere distinctly negroid, though their skins were white. A considerableportion of both torso and limbs were covered with short hair, andtheir physical proportions were in many aspects apelike, though notso much so as were Ahm's. They carried themselves in a more erectposition, although their arms were considerably longer than thoseof the Neanderthal man. As I watched them, I saw that they possesseda language, that they had knowledge of fire and that they carriedbesides the wooden club of Ahm, a thing which resembled a crudestone hatchet. Evidently they were very low in the scale ofhumanity, but they were a step upward from those I had previouslyseen in Caspak.

But what interested me most was the slender figure of a daintygirl, clad only in a thin bit of muslin which scarce covered herknees--a bit of muslin torn and ragged about the lower hem. It wasLys, and she was alive and so far as I could see, unharmed. A hugebrute with thick lips and prognathous jaw stood at her shoulder.He was talking loudly and gesticulating wildly. I was close enoughto hear his words, which were similar to the language of Ahm, thoughmuch fuller, for there were many words I could not understand.However I caught the gist of what he was saying--which in effectwas that he had found and captured this Galu, that she was hisand that he defied anyone to question his right of possession.It appeared to me, as I afterward learned was the fact, that I waswitnessing the most primitive of marriage ceremonies. The assembledmembers of the tribe looked on and listened in a sort of dull andperfunctory apathy, for the speaker was by far the mightiest of the clan.

There seemed no one to dispute his claims when he said, or rathershouted, in stentorian tones: "I am Tsa. This is my she.Who wishes her more than Tsa?"

"I do," I said in the language of Ahm, and I stepped out into thefirelight before them. Lys gave a little cry of joy and startedtoward me, but Tsa grasped her arm and dragged her back.

"Who are you?" shrieked Tsa. "I kill! I kill! I kill!"

"The she is mine," I replied, "and I have come to claim her.I kill if you do not let her come to me." And I raised my pistolto a level with his heart. Of course the creature had no conceptionof the purpose of the strange little implement which I was pokingtoward him. With a sound that was half human and half the growlof a wild beast, he sprang toward me. I aimed at his heart andfired, and as he sprawled headlong to the ground, the others ofhis tribe, overcome by fright at the report of the pistol,scattered toward the cliffs--while Lys, with outstretched arms,ran toward me.

As I crushed her to me, there rose from the black night behind usand then to our right and to our left a series of frightfulscreams and shrieks, bellowings, roars and growls. It was thenight-life of this jungle world coming into its own--the huge,carnivorous nocturnal beasts which make the nights of Caspak hideous.A shuddering sob ran through Lys' figure. "O God," she cried,"give me the strength to endure, for his sake!" I saw thatshe was upon the verge of a breakdown, after all that she musthave passed through of fear and horror that day, and I tried toquiet and reassure her as best I might; but even to me the futurelooked most unpromising, for what chance of life had we againstthe frightful hunters of the night who even now were prowlingcloser to us?

Now I turned to see what had become of the tribe, and in thefitful glare of the fire I perceived that the face of thecliff was pitted with large holes into which the man-thingswere clambering. "Come," I said to Lys, "we must follow them.We cannot last a half-hour out here. We must find a cave."Already we could see the blazing green eyes of the hungry carnivora.I seized a brand from the fire and hurled it out into the night,and there came back an answering chorus of savage and ragefulprotest; but the eyes vanished for a short time. Selecting aburning branch for each of us, we advanced toward the cliffs,where we were met by angry threats.

"They will kill us," said Lys. "We may as well keep on in searchof another refuge."

"They will not kill us so surely as will those others out there,"I replied. "I am going to seek shelter in one of these caves;nor will the man-things prevent." And I kept on in the directionof the cliff's base. A huge creature stood upon a ledge andbrandished his stone hatchet. "Come and I will kill you and takethe she," he boasted.

"You saw how Tsa fared when he would have kept my she," I repliedin his own tongue. "Thus will you fare and all your fellows ifyou do not permit us to come in peace among you out of the dangersof the night."

"Go north," he screamed. "Go north among the Galus, and we willnot harm you. Some day will we be Galus; but now we are not.You do not belong among us. Go away or we will kill you. The shemay remain if she is afraid, and we will keep her; but the hemust depart."

"The he won't depart," I replied, and approached still nearer.Rough and narrow ledges formed by nature gave access to theupper caves. A man might scale them if unhampered and unhindered,but to clamber upward in the face of a belligerent tribe of half-menand with a girl to assist was beyond my capability.

"I do not fear you," screamed the creature. "You were close toTsa; but I am far above you. You cannot harm me as you harmed Tsa.Go away!"

I placed a foot upon the lowest ledge and clambered upward,reaching down and pulling Lys to my side. Already I felt safer.Soon we would be out of danger of the beasts again closing inupon us. The man above us raised his stone hatchet above his headand leaped lightly down to meet us. His position above me gavehim a great advantage, or at least so he probably thought, for hecame with every show of confidence. I hated to do it, but thereseemed no other way, and so I shot him down as I had shot down Tsa.

"You see," I cried to his fellows, "that I can kill you whereveryou may be. A long way off I can kill you as well as I can killyou near by. Let us come among you in peace. I will not harm youif you do not harm us. We will take a cave high up. Speak!"

"Come, then," said one. "If you will not harm us, you may come.Take Tsa's hole, which lies above you."

The creature showed us the mouth of a black cave, but he kept ata distance while he did it, and Lys followed me as I crawled into explore. I had matches with me, and in the light of one Ifound a small cavern with a flat roof and floor which followedthe cleavage of the strata. Pieces of the roof had fallen atsome long-distant date, as was evidenced by the depth of thefilth and rubble in which they were embedded. Even a superficialexamination revealed the fact that nothing had ever beenattempted that might have improved the livability of the cavern;nor, should I judge, had it ever been cleaned out. With considerabledifficulty I loosened some of the larger pieces of broken rock whichlittered the floor and placed them as a barrier before the doorway.It was too dark to do more than this. I then gave Lys a piece ofdried meat, and sitting inside the entrance, we dined as must havesome of our ancient forbears at the dawning of the age of man, whilefar below the open diapason of the savage night rose weird andhorrifying to our ears. In the light of the great fire stillburning we could see huge, skulking forms, and in the blackerbackground countless flaming eyes.

Lys shuddered, and I put my arm around her and drew her to me;and thus we sat throughout the hot night. She told me of herabduction and of the fright she had undergone, and together wethanked God that she had come through unharmed, because the greatbrute had dared not pause along the danger-infested way. She saidthat they had but just reached the cliffs when I arrived, for onseveral occasions her captor had been forced to take to the treeswith her to escape the clutches of some hungry cave-lion or saber-toothed tiger, and that twice they had been obliged to remain forconsiderable periods before the beasts had retired.

Nobs, by dint of much scrambling and one or two narrow escapesfrom death, had managed to follow us up the cliff and was nowcurled between me and the doorway, having devoured a piece of thedried meat, which he seemed to relish immensely. He was thefirst to fall asleep; but I imagine we must have followed suitsoon, for we were both tired. I had laid aside my ammunition-belt and rifle, though both were close beside me; but my pistolI kept in my lap beneath my hand. However, we were not disturbedduring the night, and when I awoke, the sun was shining on thetree-tops in the distance. Lys' head had drooped to my breast,and my arm was still about her.

Shortly afterward Lys awoke, and for a moment she could not seemto comprehend her situation. She looked at me and then turnedand glanced at my arm about her, and then she seemed quitesuddenly to realize the scantiness of her apparel and drew away,covering her face with her palms and blushing furiously. I drewher back toward me and kissed her, and then she threw her armsabout my neck and wept softly in mute surrender to the inevitable.

It was an hour later before the tribe began to stir about.We watched them from our "apartment," as Lys called it.Neither men nor women wore any sort of clothing or ornaments,and they all seemed to be about of an age; nor were there anybabies or children among them. This was, to us, the strangestand most inexplicable of facts, but it recalled to us thatthough we had seen many of the lesser developed wild peopleof Caspak, we had never yet seen a child or an old man or woman.

After a while they became less suspicious of us and then quitefriendly in their brutish way. They picked at the fabric of ourclothing, which seemed to interest them, and examined my rifleand pistol and the ammunition in the belt around my waist.I showed them the thermos-bottle, and when I poured a little waterfrom it, they were delighted, thinking that it was a spring whichI carried about with me--a never-failing source of water supply.

One thing we both noticed among their other characteristics: theynever laughed nor smiled; and then we remembered that Ahm hadnever done so, either. I asked them if they knew Ahm; but theysaid they did not.

One of them said: "Back there we may have known him." And hejerked his head to the south.

"You came from back there?" I asked. He looked at me in surprise.

"We all come from there," he said. "After a while we go there."And this time he jerked his head toward the north. "Be Galus,"he concluded.

Many times now had we heard this reference to becoming Galus.Ahm had spoken of it many times. Lys and I decided that it wasa sort of original religious conviction, as much a part of themas their instinct for self-preservation--a primal acceptance ofa hereafter and a holier state. It was a brilliant theory, butit was all wrong. I know it now, and how far we were fromguessing the wonderful, the miraculous, the gigantic truth whicheven yet I may only guess at--the thing that sets Caspak apartfrom all the rest of the world far more definitely than herisolated geographical position or her impregnable barrier ofgiant cliffs. If I could live to return to civilization, Ishould have meat for the clergy and the layman to chew upon foryears--and for the evolutionists, too.

After breakfast the men set out to hunt, while the women went toa large pool of warm water covered with a green scum and filledwith billions of tadpoles. They waded in to where the water wasabout a foot deep and lay down in the mud. They remained therefrom one to two hours and then returned to the cliff. While wewere with them, we saw this same thing repeated every morning;but though we asked them why they did it we could get no replywhich was intelligible to us. All they vouchsafed in way ofexplanation was the single word Ata. They tried to get Lys to goin with them and could not understand why she refused. After thefirst day I went hunting with the men, leaving my pistol andNobs with Lys, but she never had to use them, for no reptile orbeast ever approached the pool while the women were there--nor,so far as we know, at other times. There was no spoor of wildbeast in the soft mud along the banks, and the water certainlydidn't look fit to drink.

This tribe lived largely upon the smaller animals which theybowled over with their stone hatchets after making a wide circleabout their quarry and driving it so that it had to pass close toone of their number. The little horses and the smaller antelopethey secured in sufficient numbers to support life, and they alsoate numerous varieties of fruits and vegetables. They neverbrought in more than sufficient food for their immediate needs;but why bother? The food problem of Caspak is not one to causeworry to her inhabitants.

The fourth day Lys told me that she thought she felt equal toattempting the return journey on the morrow, and so I set out forthe hunt in high spirits, for I was anxious to return to the fortand learn if Bradley and his party had returned and what had beenthe result of his expedition. I also wanted to relieve theirminds as to Lys and myself, as I knew that they must have alreadygiven us up for dead. It was a cloudy day, though warm, as italways is in Caspak. It seemed odd to realize that just a fewmiles away winter lay upon the storm-tossed ocean, and that snowmight be falling all about Caprona; but no snow could everpenetrate the damp, hot atmosphere of the great crater.

We had to go quite a bit farther than usual before we couldsurround a little bunch of antelope, and as I was helping drivethem, I saw a fine red deer a couple of hundred yards behind me.He must have been asleep in the long grass, for I saw him riseand look about him in a bewildered way, and then I raised my gunand let him have it. He dropped, and I ran forward to finish himwith the long thin knife, which one of the men had given me; butjust as I reached him, he staggered to his feet and ran on foranother two hundred yards--when I dropped him again. Once morewas this repeated before I was able to reach him and cut histhroat; then I looked around for my companions, as I wanted themto come and carry the meat home; but I could see nothing of them.I called a few times and waited, but there was no response and noone came. At last I became disgusted, and cutting off all themeat that I could conveniently carry, I set off in the directionof the cliffs. I must have gone about a mile before the truthdawn upon me--I was lost, hopelessly lost.

The entire sky was still completely blotted out by dense clouds;nor was there any landmark visible by which I might have takenmy bearings. I went on in the direction I thought was south butwhich I now imagine must have been about due north, withoutdetecting a single familiar object. In a dense wood I suddenlystumbled upon a thing which at first filled me with hope and laterwith the most utter despair and dejection. It was a little moundof new-turned earth sprinkled with flowers long since withered,and at one end was a flat slab of sandstone stuck in the ground.It was a grave, and it meant for me that I had at last stumbledinto a country inhabited by human beings. I would find them;they would direct me to the cliffs; perhaps they would accompanyme and take us back with them to their abodes--to the abodes ofmen and women like ourselves. My hopes and my imagination ranriot in the few yards I had to cover to reach that lonely graveand stoop that I might read the rude characters scratched uponthe simple headstone. This is what I read:

HERE LIES JOHN TIPPET ENGLISHMAN KILLED BY TYRANNOSAURUS 10SEPT., A.D. 1916 R. I. P.

Tippet! It seemed incredible. Tippet lying here in this gloomy wood!Tippet dead! He had been a good man, but the personal loss was notwhat affected me. It was the fact that this silent grave gaveevidence that Bradley had come this far upon his expedition and thathe too probably was lost, for it was not our intention that he shouldbe long gone. If I had stumbled upon the grave of one of the party,was it not within reason to believe that the bones of the others layscattered somewhere near?