men who do things--in
contradistinction to those who think much and do nothing. Instead, I
leaped back into the water and swam out toward the drowning beast. At
first he showed his teeth at my approach, but just before I reached him
he went under for the second time, so that I had to dive to get him.

I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and though he weighed as much
as a Shetland pony, I managed to drag him to shore and well up upon the
beach. Here I found that one of his forelegs was broken--the crash
against the cliff-face must have done it.

By this time all the fight was out of him, so that when I had gathered
a few tiny branches from some of the stunted trees that grew in the
crevices of the cliff, and returned to him he permitted me to set his
broken leg and bind it in splints. I had to tear part of my shirt into
bits to obtain a bandage, but at last the job was done. Then I sat
stroking the savage head and talking to the beast in the man-dog talk
with which you are familiar, if you ever owned and loved a dog.

When he is well, I thought, he probably will turn upon me and attempt
to devour me, and against that eventuality I gathered together a pile
of rocks and set to work to fashion a stone-knife. We were bottled up
at the head of the fiord as completely as if we had been behind prison
bars. Before us spread the Sojar Az, and else-where about us rose
unscalable cliffs.

Fortunately a little rivulet trickled down the side of the rocky wall,
giving us ample supply of fresh water--some of which I kept constantly
beside the hyaenodon in a huge, bowl-shaped shell, of which there were
count-less numbers among the rubble of the beach.

For food we subsisted upon shellfish and an occasional bird that I
succeeded in knocking over with a rock, for long practice as a pitcher
on prep-school and varsity nines had made me an excellent shot with a
hand-thrown missile.

It was not long before the hyaenodon's leg was sufficiently mended to
permit him to rise and hobble about on three legs. I shall never
forget with what intent interest I watched his first attempt. Close at
my hand lay my pile of rocks. Slowly the beast came to his three good
feet. He stretched himself, lowered his head, and lapped water from
the drinking-shell at his side, turned and looked at me, and then
hobbled off toward the cliffs.

Thrice he traversed the entire extent of our prison, seeking, I
imagine, a loop-hole for escape, but f