ch gave way to a
leaden gray as the wart-covered skin reached the back. Two enormous
hind legs, each thick as a man's torso and each equipped with three
dagger-like talons, struck out in helpless fury at the air, while a
long, lizard-like tail threshed powerfully back and forth, scattering
ponderous boulders right and left as though they had been marbles. The
flashlight being trained as it was, the monster's head and
forequarters were invisible, all save two very much smaller and
shorter front legs which, like the hinder ones, clawed spasmodically.

"The D. T's!" gasped Nelson, conscious that he was trembling like an
aspen. He suppressed a wild desire to laugh. "Yes, I've gone crazy!"

* * * * *

He glanced downwards and leaped swiftly back, for, creeping over the
stones towards his fur outer boots, meandered a wide rivulet of bright
scarlet blood. From its surface rose small curling feathers of steam
which, drifting towards the tunnel's roof, merged with that gray,
vaporous current flowing steadily towards the sunless Arctic expanse
outside.

It took Nelson a long five minutes to sufficiently recover his
equilibrium for action. All he could do was to stare at that
grotesque, gargoyle-like creature as it writhed in leisurely and
persistent death throes.

"Guess I winged it all right! My God, what a nasty beast! Looks like
one of those allosaurs I read about in college. It couldn't be,
though--that tribe of dinosaurs died out five million years ago."

Cautiously he scrambled around among the high black stones, casting
the search light beams before him and holding the Winchester always
ready in his hand while trying to recall snatches of palaeontology
studied at college long years ago.

"Yes, it must be a survival of one of the carnivorous dinosaurs," he
decided, then paused, increasingly conscious of that steady thudding
noise. What caused it?

* * * * *

At last he found himself before the creature's gigantic and repulsive
head which lay limp over a blood bathed stone, huge jaws partially
open, and serrated rows of wicked, stiletto-sharp teeth gleaming
yellowly in the flashlight's rays. The head in shape was bullet-like,
ending in a blunt nose as big as a bushel basket and in two prominent
nostrils. The green, lidless eyes were still open, shining faintly,
and seemed to follow his movements, but the steaming blood poured with
the force of a small