As I stood looking down upon that sad and lonely mound, wrappedin the most dismal of reflections and premonitions, I wassuddenly seized from behind and thrown to earth. As I fell, awarm body fell on top of me, and hands grasped my arms and legs.When I could look up, I saw a number of giant fingers pinioningme down, while others stood about surveying me. Here again wasa new type of man--a higher type than the primitive tribe I hadjust quitted. They were a taller people, too, with better-shapedskulls and more intelligent faces. There were less of the apecharacteristics about their features, and less of the negroid, too.They carried weapons, stone-shod spears, stone knives, and hatchets--and they wore ornaments and breech-cloths--the former of feathersworn in their hair and the latter made of a single snake-skin curedwith the head on, the head depending to their knees.

Of course I did not take in all these details upon the instant ofmy capture, for I was busy with other matters. Three of thewarriors were sitting upon me, trying to hold me down by mainstrength and awkwardness, and they were having their hands fullin the doing, I can tell you. I don't like to appear conceited,but I may as well admit that I am proud of my strength and thescience that I have acquired and developed in the directing ofit--that and my horsemanship I always have been proud of. And now,that day, all the long hours that I had put into careful study,practice and training brought me in two or three minutes a fullreturn upon my investment. Californians, as a rule, are familiarwith ju-jutsu, and I especially had made a study of it for severalyears, both at school and in the gym of the Los Angeles AthleticClub, while recently I had had, in my employ, a Jap who was awonder at the art.

It took me just about thirty seconds to break the elbow of one ofmy assailants, trip another and send him stumbling backward amonghis fellows, and throw the third completely over my head in sucha way that when he fell his neck was broken. In the instant thatthe others of the party stood in mute and inactive surprise, Iunslung my rifle--which, carelessly, I had been carrying acrossmy back; and when they charged, as I felt they would, I put abullet in the forehead of one of them. This stopped them alltemporarily--not the death of their fellow, but the report of therifle, the first they had ever heard. Before they were ready toattack me again, one of them spoke in a commanding tone to hisfellows, and in a language similar but still more comprehensivethan that of the tribe to the south, as theirs was more completethan Ahm's. He commanded them to stand back and then he advancedand addressed me.

He asked me who I was, from whence I came and what my intentions were.I replied that I was a stranger in Caspak, that I was lost and thatmy only desire was to find my way back to my companions. He askedwhere they were and I told him toward the south somewhere, usingthe Caspakian phrase which, literally translated, means "towardthe beginning." His surprise showed upon his face before he voicedit in words. "There are no Galus there," he said.

"I tell you," I said angrily, "that I am from another country,far from Caspak, far beyond the high cliffs. I do not know whothe Galus may be; I have never seen them. This is the farthestnorth I have been. Look at me--look at my clothing and my weapons.Have you ever seen a Galu or any other creature in Caspak whopossessed such things?"

He had to admit that he had not, and also that he was muchinterested in me, my rifle and the way I had handled histhree warriors. Finally he became half convinced that I wastelling him the truth and offered to aid me if I would show himhow I had thrown the man over my head and also make him a presentof the "bang-spear," as he called it. I refused to give him myrifle, but promised to show him the trick he wished to learn ifhe would guide me in the right direction. He told me that hewould do so tomorrow, that it was too late today and that I mightcome to their village and spend the night with them. I was loathto lose so much time; but the fellow was obdurate, and so Iaccompanied them. The two dead men they left where they hadfallen, nor gave them a second glance--thus cheap is life upon Caspak.

These people also were cave-dwellers, but their caves showed theresult of a higher intelligence that brought them a step nearerto civilized man than the tribe next "toward the beginning."The interiors of their caverns were cleared of rubbish, thoughstill far from clean, and they had pallets of dried grassescovered with the skins of leopard, lynx, and bear, while beforethe entrances were barriers of stone and small, rudely circularstone ovens. The walls of the cavern to which I was conducted werecovered with drawings scratched upon the sandstone. There werethe outlines of the giant red-deer, of mammoths, of tigers andother beasts. Here, as in the last tribe, there were no childrenor any old people. The men of this tribe had two names, orrather names of two syllables, and their language contained wordsof two syllables; whereas in the tribe of Tsa the words were allof a single syllable, with the exception of a very few like Atisand Galus. The chief's name was To-jo, and his householdconsisted of seven females and himself. These women were muchmore comely, or rather less hideous than those of Tsa's people;one of them, even, was almost pretty, being less hairy and havinga rather nice skin, with high coloring.

They were all much interested in me and examined my clothing andequipment carefully, handling and feeling and smelling of each article.I learned from them that their people were known as Bandlu, orspear-men; Tsa's race was called Sto-lu-- hatchet-men. Below thesein the scale of evolution came the Bo-lu, or club-men, and then theAlus, who had no weapons and no language. In that word I recognizedwhat to me seemed the most remarkable discovery I had made uponCaprona, for unless it were mere coincidence, I had come upon a wordthat had been handed down from the beginning of spoken language uponearth, been handed down for millions of years, perhaps, withlittle change. It was the sole remaining thread of the ancientwoof of a dawning culture which had been woven when Caprona wasa fiery mount upon a great land-mass teeming with life. It linkedthe unfathomable then to the eternal now. And yet it may have beenpure coincidence; my better judgment tells me that it is coincidencethat in Caspak the term for speechless man is Alus, and in the outerworld of our own day it is Alalus.

The comely woman of whom I spoke was called So-ta, and she tooksuch a lively interest in me that To-jo finally objected to herattentions, emphasizing his displeasure by knocking her down andkicking her into a corner of the cavern. I leaped between themwhile he was still kicking her, and obtaining a quick hold uponhim, dragged him screaming with pain from the cave. Then I madehim promise not to hurt the she again, upon pain of worse punishment.So-ta gave me a grateful look; but To-jo and the balance of his womenwere sullen and ominous.

Later in the evening So-ta confided to me that she was soon toleave the tribe.

"So-ta soon to be Kro-lu," she confided in a low whisper. I askedher what a Kro-lu might be, and she tried to explain, but I do notyet know if I understood her. From her gestures I deduced that theKro-lus were a people who were armed with bows and arrows, hadvessels in which to cook their food and huts of some sort in whichthey lived, and were accompanied by animals. It was all veryfragmentary and vague, but the idea seemed to be that the Kro-luswere a more advanced people than the Band-lus. I pondered a longtime upon all that I had heard, before sleep came to me. I triedto find some connection between these various races that wouldexplain the universal hope which each of them harbored that someday they would become Galus. So-ta had given me a suggestion; butthe resulting idea was so weird that I could scarce even entertainit; yet it coincided with Ahm's expressed hope, with the varioussteps in evolution I had noted in the several tribes I had encounteredand with the range of type represented in each tribe. For example,among the Band-lu were such types as So-ta, who seemed to me to bethe highest in the scale of evolution, and To-jo, who was just ashade nearer the ape, while there were others who had flatter noses,more prognathous faces and hairier bodies. The question puzzled me.Possibly in the outer world the answer to it is locked in the bosomof the Sphinx. Who knows? I do not.

Thinking the thoughts of a lunatic or a dope-fiend, I fell asleep;and when I awoke, my hands and feet were securely tied and myweapons had been taken from me. How they did it without awakeningme I cannot tell you. It was humiliating, but it was true.To-jo stood above me. The early light of morning was dimlyfiltering into the cave.

"Tell me," he demanded, "how to throw a man over my head andbreak his neck, for I am going to kill you, and I wish to knowthis thing before you die."

Of all the ingenuous declarations I have ever heard, this onecopped the proverbial bun. It struck me as so funny that, evenin the face of death, I laughed. Death, I may remark here, had,however, lost much of his terror for me. I had become a discipleof Lys' fleeting philosophy of the valuelessness of human life.I realized that she was quite right--that we were but comic figureshopping from the cradle to the grave, of interest to practicallyno other created thing than ourselves and our few intimates.

Behind To-jo stood So-ta. She raised one hand with the palmtoward me--the Caspakian equivalent of a negative shake of the head.

"Let me think about it," I parried, and To-jo said that he wouldwait until night. He would give me a day to think it over; thenhe left, and the women left--the men for the hunt, and the women,as I later learned from So-ta, for the warm pool where they immersedtheir bodies as did the shes of the Sto-lu. "Ata," explained So-ta,when I questioned her as to the purpose of this matutinal rite;but that was later.

I must have lain there bound and uncomfortable for two or threehours when at last So-ta entered the cave. She carried a sharpknife--mine, in fact, and with it she cut my bonds.

"Come!" she said. "So-ta will go with you back to the Galus.It is time that So-ta left the Band-lu. Together we will go tothe Kro-lu, and after that the Galus. To-jo will kill you tonight.He will kill So-ta if he knows that So-ta aided you. We willgo together."

"I will go with you to the Kro-lu," I replied, "but then I mustreturn to my own people `toward the beginning.'"

"You cannot go back," she said. "It is forbidden. They wouldkill you. Thus far have you come--there is no returning."

"But I must return, I insisted. "My people are there. I mustreturn and lead them in this direction."

She insisted, and I insisted; but at last we compromised. I wasto escort her as far as the country of the Kro-lu and then I wasto go back after my own people and lead them north into a landwhere the dangers were fewer and the people less murderous.She brought me all my belongings that had been filched fromme--rifle, ammunition, knife, and thermos bottle, and then handin hand we descended the cliff and set off toward the north.

For three days we continued upon our way, until we arrivedoutside a village of thatched huts just at dusk. So-ta saidthat she would enter alone; I must not be seen if I did notintend to remain, as it was forbidden that one should returnand live after having advanced this far. So she left me.She was a dear girl and a stanch and true comrade--more likea man than a woman. In her simple barbaric way she was bothrefined and chaste. She had been the wife of To-jo. Among theKro-lu she would find another mate after the manner of thestrange Caspakian world; but she told me very frankly thatwhenever I returned, she would leave her mate and come to me, asshe preferred me above all others. I was becoming a ladies' manafter a lifetime of bashfulness!

At the outskirts of the village I left her without even seeingthe sort of people who inhabited it, and set off through thegrowing darkness toward the south. On the third day I made adetour westward to avoid the country of the Band-lu, as I did notcare to be detained by a meeting with To-jo. On the sixth day Icame to the cliffs of the Sto-lu, and my heart beat fast as Iapproached them, for here was Lys. Soon I would hold her tightin my arms again; soon her warm lips would merge with mine.I felt sure that she was still safe among the hatchet people, andI was already picturing the joy and the love-light in her eyeswhen she should see me once more as I emerged from the last clumpof trees and almost ran toward the cliffs.

It was late in the morning. The women must have returned fromthe pool; yet as I drew near, I saw no sign of life whatever."They have remained longer," I thought; but when I was quiteclose to the base of the cliffs, I saw that which dashed my hopesand my happiness to earth. Strewn along the ground were a scoreof mute and horrible suggestions of what had taken place duringmy absence--bones picked clean of flesh, the bones of manlikecreatures, the bones of many of the tribe of Sto-lu; nor in anycave was there sign of life.

Closely I examined the ghastly remains fearful each instant thatI should find the dainty skull that would shatter my happinessfor life; but though I searched diligently, picking up everyone of the twenty-odd skulls, I found none that was the skullof a creature but slightly removed from the ape. Hope, then,still lived. For another three days I searched north and south,east and west for the hatchetmen of Caspak; but never a trace ofthem did I find. It was raining most of the time now, and theweather was as near cold as it ever seems to get on Caprona.

At last I gave up the search and set off toward Fort Dinosaur.For a week--a week filled with the terrors and dangers of aprimeval world--I pushed on in the direction I thought was south.The sun never shone; the rain scarcely ever ceased falling.The beasts I met with were fewer in number but infinitely moreterrible in temper; yet I lived on until there came to me therealization that I was hopelessly lost, that a year of sunshinewould not again give me my bearings; and while I was cast down bythis terrifying knowledge, the knowledge that I never again couldfind Lys, I stumbled upon another grave--the grave of William James,with its little crude headstone and its scrawled charactersrecording that he had died upon the 13th of September--killed bya saber-tooth tiger.

I think that I almost gave up then. Never in my life have I feltmore hopeless or helpless or alone. I was lost. I could notfind my friends. I did not even know that they still lived; infact, I could not bring myself to believe that they did. I wassure that Lys was dead. I wanted myself to die, and yet I clungto life--useless and hopeless and harrowing a thing as it had become.I clung to life because some ancient, reptilian forbear had clungto life and transmitted to me through the ages the most powerfulmotive that guided his minute brain--the motive of self-preservation.

At last I came to the great barrier-cliffs; and after three daysof mad effort--of maniacal effort--I scaled them. I built crudeladders; I wedged sticks in narrow fissures; I chopped toe-holdsand finger-holds with my long knife; but at last I scaled them.Near the summit I came upon a huge cavern. It is the abode ofsome mighty winged creature of the Triassic--or rather it was.Now it is mine. I slew the thing and took its abode. I reachedthe summit and looked out upon the broad gray terrible Pacific ofthe far-southern winter. It was cold up there. It is cold heretoday; yet here I sit watching, watching, watching for the thingI know will never come--for a sail.