"What do you teach in this university, friend?" Zenas queried.
"A little of the science of the stars, Father Zenas—or I did, for it is many years since I have sat among my pupils—somewhat of history and of language," replied the red captain.
"Humph; you must have been a young teacher," said Zenas Wright, and he ran his fingers through the sprouting stubble of his beard, as he had a habit of doing when things vexed him. Suddenly he jumped in his seat, though the wrench to his sore flesh cost him a wry face.
"Hey! Everson! Look at that, and then tell me if I'm dreaming."
The "that" was a gateway through which the car was about to pass. Oleric followed with a glance the direction in which the geologist pointed and then rode on with a smile.
It was a very curious gate, so curious that, if it still stands, and it doubtless does, for it was built to endure, there is none other just like it in the world. At each side of the roadway was a section of black stone wall, extending along the path a matter of a dozen feet and some ten feet high. At intervals along the tops of the two walls were set round, squat pillars, also of stone. Those had been hollowed out and served as bases for enormous ivory tusks, which were embedded in cement in the hollowed pillars, and from them curved up to meet over the center of the roadway, where their tips were made fast with double sockets of bronze.
Ivory the tusks were; there was no doubting that; weather-checked and stained yellow by age and the elements, but still ivory. But the size of them! No elephant that ever walked the earth bore ivories of such proportions. For they were as large around at their bases as the chest of an average man; and from base to tapering tip there was none of them that did not measure eleven feet. Seven pair of them there were, and all splendidly matched.
Zenas stared back at that marvelous arch—for it was more an archway than a gate—as hard as he could stare. Not until a turn of the road hid it, did he relax into his seat.
"Maybe he isn't so great a liar, after all," he said, and he meant Oleric. "Everson, those are mammoth's tusks—sure's I'm a sinner."