If this, indeed, was a living Plesiosaurus it was a blind one, and, moreover, the scaly skin had a dried up, leathery appearance and the head fell down over the rocks after Martin Mudd ran away and just hung there limply.
“A fake! A dead one!” flashed over Dick, and he added to himself: “This is some of Doctor Dan’s work.”
And so it was. As Martin Mudd fled from the monster Doctor Dan came crawling out from behind the rocks, carrying a long stick in his hand.
“Hush, boy! Don’t say a word!” he whispered. “I’ll have you free in just one minute. Ha! Ha! Ha! How he did run!”
The Indian was shaking all over with suppressed laughter, as he cut the cords which held Dick a prisoner.
“Good for you, doctor!” cried Dick, springing up. “What have you been doing; killing old P. D.?”
“Not at all. That one is dead and it is only a fragment,” replied the Indian. He seized the dangling head and pulled and two or three yards of neck came whipping over the rocks and that was all there was to old P. D.
It was all dried up and looked decidedly aged.
“I ran this stick in under the jaw and just shook the head at him,” chuckled Doctor Dan. “Didn’t it scare him, though? Ha! Ha! Ha! Where is Charley, Dick? What in the world have you been about to let those fellows capture you? Oh, don’t be afraid of them. They are all dead drunk and asleep in the hut there but that man and he is such a coward that—ha—here he comes now.”
Mudd stepped out of the hut at that moment.