But after all she did not join the party that was riding toward the hills that morning, for the thought of seeing the torn and twisted strata of a bygone age that lifted its scarred head above the surface of the plain at the base of the mountains was more than she felt equal to. They did not urge her, and as she insisted that Mr. Curtiss accompany the other men she was left alone at the bungalow with Lady Greystoke, the baby and the servants.
As the party trotted across the rolling land that stretched before them to the foothills they sighted a herd of zebras coming toward them in mad stampede.
"Something is hunting ahead of us," remarked one of the men.
"We may get a shot at a lion from the looks of it," replied another.
A short distance further on they came upon the carcass of a zebra stallion. Barney and Butzow dismounted to examine it in an effort to determine the nature of the enemy that had dispatched it. At the first glance Barney called to one of the other members of the party, an experienced big game hunter.
"What do you make of this, Brown?" he asked, pointing to the exposed haunch.
"It is a man's kill," replied the other. "Look at that gaping hole over the heart, that would tell the story were it not for the evidence of the knife that cut away these strips from the rump. The carcass is still warm—the kill must have been made within the past few minutes."
"Then it wouldn't have been a man," spoke up another, "or we should have heard the shot. Wait, here's Greystoke, let's see what he thinks of it."
The ape man, who had been riding a couple hundred yards in rear of the others with one of the older men, now reined in close to the dead zebra.
"What have we here?" he asked, swinging from his saddle.