"Probably we did not reach the grounds at the right time of day," replied Bearwarden. "The large game doubtless stays in the woods and jungles till night."
"I fancy," said Cortlandt, "we shall find representatives of all the species that once lived upon the earth. In the case of the singing flowers and the Jack-o'-lantern jelly-fish, we have, in addition, seen developments the existence of which no scientist has ever before even suspected."
Occasionally the tortoise stopped, whereupon they poked it from behind with their knives. It was a vicious-looking brute, and had a huge horny beak, with which it bit off young trees that stood in its way as though they had been blades of grass. They were passing through a valley about half a mile wide, bordered on each side by woods, when Bearwarden suddenly exclaimed, "Here we have it!" and, looking forward, they unexpectedly saw a head rise and remain poised about fifteen feet from the ground. It was a dinosaur, and belonged to the scaled or armoured species. In a few moments another head appeared, and towered several feet above the first. The head was obviously reptilian, but had a beak similar to that of their tortoise. The hind legs were developed like those of a kangaroo, while the small rudimentary forepaws, which could be used as hands or for going quadruped-fashion, now hung down. The strong thick tail was evidently of great use to them when standing erect, by forming a sort of tripod.
"How I wish we could take a pair of those creatures with us when we return to the earth!" said Cortlandt.
"They would be trump cards," replied Bearwarden, "in a zoological garden or a dime museum, and would take the wind out of the sails of all the other freaks."
As they lay flat on the turtle's back, the monsters gazed at them unconcernedly, munching the palm-tree fruit so loudly that they could be heard a long distance.
The ride on the giant tortoise.
"Having nothing to fear from a tortoise," resumed Cortlandt, "they may allow us to stalk them. We are in their eyes like hippocentaurs, except that we are part of a tortoise instead of part of a horse, or else they take us for a parasite or fibrous growth on the shell."