At the same instant, Jack’s rifle cracked.—Page 297.
It was larger than a big cow and ran with a queer, romping sort of gait, suggestive of a rocking horse. Its head was flat and hideous. Its color a dirty brownish white. A more repulsive looking creature could hardly be imagined.
As his eyes fell on it, the professor gave a gasp. He shook from head to foot as if he had been suddenly taken with a fit of the ague.
“Mein Gott in Himmel!” he gasped, and there was no irreverence in his tone, “Der Megatherium!”
At the same instant, Jack’s rifle cracked. The creature gave a loud, terribly human scream and swung toward them. Tom’s rifle barked and with a crash the huge animal sank down in a heap on the river bank. They rushed pell-mell upon it. The professor was yelling like a wild man. The others were hardly less excited.
“Be careful,” warned Mr. Chadwick, as they approached, but the animal was quite dead.
It lay on its side with its legs outstretched. On its feet were large curved claws and its hair was as rough and coarse as that of the small sloth they had shot some days before. As they stood by it, gazing with a wonder in which there was something reverential at this survivor of the age of the mammoth, the professor spoke.
“Chentlemen, ve are der only living beings besides de savages dot haf efer seen such a sighdt. Poys! Der contracdt is ge-fulfilled!”
“Mumping mammoths of Mauretania, I’ll take a picture!” shouted Dick Donovan by a happy inspiration. And there, by the side of that lonely river, was taken the photo that has since been reproduced in countless periodicals throughout the world.