“However, that ain’t their main method of combat; that ain’t the way one of ’em took off my dear friend—Jack Snodgrass was his name. The glyptodont has got a big flat tail made out of stuff like cow’s horn, except there ain’t no bone in it. This tail bein’ springy is a great aid and help in more ways than one. He can jump along with it and clear the brush, and he can land on it when he wants to jump off of a cliff, and he don’t feel no bad effects from the jar.
“Well, I started to tell you how one of them beasts took off my dear friend Jack Snodgrass. Jack used to work on this outfit, and one fall he was workin’ the canyon, jist like we’ll be tomorrow, and Jack gits a glimpse of the glyptodont. Jack was always a curious lad; so he tarried around to see what the critter was about. Jack was on the other side of a canyon, anyway, and he ’lowed he’d have plenty of time to make his stampede if the critter showed any signs of combat. So Jack jist looks across to see what’s goin’ on.
“Directly the glyptodont gits wind of him and looks at him right straight for a minute or two. But Jack still ain’t worried none, havin’ the canyon between him and the ferocious beast. He jist stands there and watches him to see what he is about. Purty soon he notices that the glyptodont is spadin’ around on the ground with his tail. Presently he scoops up a big boulder, jist like you’d lift it with a shovel. He carries this on his tail, bein’ careful not to let it fall off, and backs up and eases it off on the top of a bigger boulder. Jack begins to try to figure out a way to capture the brute; he ’lows if he ever could git him broke, he’d be a mighty handy animal to have around the place about tankin’ time.
“Well, the glyptodont walks over to the other side of the rock he’s set up and squats on his hind legs; then he draws up his front legs and begins to whirl around and around on his hind legs, jist like a spool of barbed wire on a crowbar when you’re stringin’ fence. After he spins around a while, he lets down his tail, which hits the rock he’s set up, which comes through the air like a cannon-ball. That was the last thing pore Jack ever knowed. We buried him, pore feller, next day—that is, all of him we could find. When we’re over there tomorrow, I’ll show you the place where he got kilt, as well as a lot of other places where them critters has catapulted rocks up and down the canyons jist to keep in practice and for the fun of seein’ ’em roll. Yeah, them club-tailed glyptodonts is ferocious animals.”
“They’re vicious brutes,” agreed Joe, “but they ain’t got much on the gwinter.”
“I never heard of a gwinter,” said Lanky.
“Well,” replied Joe, “did you ever hear of a godaphro?”
“No.”
“Did you ever hear of a side-swiper?”
“No.”