stripe the dark roan of
their coats made me take them for zebra when I first saw them. All in
all they are handsome animals, and added the finishing touch to the
strange and lovely landscape that spread before my new home.

I had determined to make the cave my headquarters, and with it as a
base make a systematic exploration of the surrounding country in search
of the land of Sari. First I devoured the remainder of the carcass of
the orthopi I had killed before my last sleep. Then I hid the Great
Secret in a deep niche at the back of my cave, rolled the bowlder
before my front door, and with bow, arrows, sword, and shield scrambled
down into the peaceful valley.

The grazing herds moved to one side as I passed through them, the
little orthopi evincing the greatest wariness and galloping to safest
distances. All the animals stopped feeding as I approached, and after
moving to what they considered a safe distance stood contemplating me
with serious eyes and up-cocked ears. Once one of the old bull
antelopes of the striped species lowered his head and bellowed
angrily--even taking a few steps in my direction, so that I thought he
meant to charge; but after I had passed, he resumed feeding as though
nothing had disturbed him.

Near the lower end of the valley I passed a number of tapirs, and
across the river saw a great sadok, the enormous double-horned
progenitor of the modern rhinoceros. At the valley's end the cliffs
upon the left ran out into the sea, so that to pass around them as I
desired to do it was necessary to scale them in search of a ledge along
which I might continue my journey. Some fifty feet from the base I
came upon a projection which formed a natural path along the face of
the cliff, and this I followed out over the sea toward the cliff's end.

Here the ledge inclined rapidly upward toward the top of the
cliffs--the stratum which formed it evidently having been forced up at
this steep angle when the mountains behind it were born. As I climbed
carefully up the ascent my attention suddenly was attracted aloft by
the sound of strange hissing, and what resembled the flapping of wings.

And at the first glance there broke upon my horrified vision the most
frightful thing I had seen even within Pellucidar. It was a giant
dragon such as is pictured in the legends and fairy tales of earth
folk. Its huge body must have measured forty feet in length, while the
batlike wings that supported it in mida