The smell came from the rotting carcase of a huge mammoth lying buried in the mud.
It was the animal which Vaneyke was hunting for.
This creature had probably stepped into the marsh centuries before, and sinking into the mire, was buried alive.
It had been preserved by the swamp freezing around it, and thus would have kept for an indefinite period, had not a thaw set in which rapidly decomposed the enormous body.
Exposed to Frank’s view was an elephantine head, covered with dry, dark-gray skin, furnished with tufts of hairs, the neck was covered with a long flowing mane, and a reddish wool grew all over the exposed parts.
The long, curved tusks were ten feet in length.
“What a stench! It is awful!” he muttered, holding his nose. “The mud has hold of the wheels and runners.”
Having seen how the Ranger was held. Frank dashed inside, and telling the professor what he had seen, he pulled the levers controlling the side wheels and driving screw.
As they began slowly to revolve, the mud flew up from them in showers, and the runners having been thus cleared, the ascensional force of the gyroscopes lifted the ship up.
She freed herself this way and rose a few feet, then darted away.