“Oh yes, after a fashion,” answered Dick, who was really rather clever with his pencil and brush in an amateurish fashion. “He was something like this.” And, whipping out his pocket-book, he rapidly produced a very spirited pencil sketch of the unknown creature.
“Gee!” repeated Earle, studying the sketch. “Say, Dick, this is intensely interesting. The thing looks absolutely new to me. And yet—I don’t quite know. Seems to me that I’ve somewhere seen something a bit like it before—”
“That’s what I thought,” said Dick; “though I’m quite prepared to swear that I never before saw the actual thing itself. I should have remembered it if I had.”
“Y–e–s, I guess you would,” returned Earle, still thoughtfully considering the sketch. At length he returned the book to Dick, remarking:
“Then you think there is just a possibility that we may be able to cross the swamp by way of that tongue of firm ground that you explored this afternoon? In that case, I guess we’ll try it. We may succeed; and if we do, it will save us a long journey round; for I was unable to find the northern end of the swamp this afternoon, although, before turning back I climbed the highest tree in the neighbourhood and carefully searched the whole of the visible country through my Goertz prismatics. We will try that tongue of land of yours to-morrow, Dick. And as for the flies and things, I guess we can beat them by enveloping our heads in gauze veils and wearing gloves. I brought some green gauze along expressly to meet such a contingency. Learned the wrinkle in Africa, where the flies and mosquitoes used to drive me pretty nearly crazy.”
An hour after sunrise on the following morning found the expedition en route, and in due time it reached the tongue of firm ground which Dick had discovered during the preceding afternoon. Here the two leaders enveloped their heads, helmets and all, in capacious veils of green gauze which Earle had produced during the preceding evening.
Earle was in exceptionally high spirits that morning. The story of Dick’s encounter with the strange beast had intensely interested him, for he was by way of being a naturalist, as well as a good many other things, and he was naturally eager to get a sight of another creature of the same species. Then a view at close quarters of the swamp added further to his excitement, for even then, in the dazzling glare of the morning sun, there was a certain suggestion of weirdness and uncanniness about the place that appealed very strongly to his imagination. To young, prosaic Dick Cavendish, a sailor pure and simple, whose only knowledge of science was that connected with navigation, the swamp was just—well, a swamp, and nothing more; but, to Earle’s higher scientific intelligence it was an absorbingly interesting mystery. For they had scarcely penetrated it to the depth of a mile before the American began to be aware that the character of his surroundings was undergoing a subtle change, the herbage underfoot, the rushes that edged the lagoons and water channels, the plants that here and there in wide patches hid the surface of the water, the ferns that decked the banks of the water-courses, were all new and strange to him; and this, in conjunction with Dick’s adventure here, less than twenty-four hours ago, generated within him a thrilling conviction that he was on the brink of great and important discoveries.
Presently Dick turned to him and said, pointing: “You see where the ground narrows away to a mere ridge, ahead there? It was just on this side of it that the queer beast was squatting when I first caught sight of him.”
“That so?” responded Earle, coming to a sudden standstill. “Halt there, men; don’t advance another step until I tell you,” he ordered, wheeling round and holding up his hand.
“Now then, Dick,” he continued, “you and I will go forward, carefully examining the soil for footprints. Perhaps, if we are in luck, we may succeed in finding an impression, though I am afraid the ground is rather too dry—stay, what is this?”