those pieces will form a new organism.
This proves that there are ramifications and developments of life which
we never dreamed of."

CHAPTER VII.

AN UNSEEN HUNTER.

They calculated that they had come ten or twelve miles from the place
at which they built the raft, while the damp salt breeze blowing from
the south showed them they were near the ocean. Concluding that large
bodies of water must be very much alike on all planets, they decided to
make for a range of hills due north and a few miles off, and to
complete the circuit of the square in returning to the Callisto. The
soft wet sand was covered with huge and curious tracks, doubtless made
by creatures that had come to the stream during the night to drink, and
they noticed with satisfaction as they set out that the fresher ones
led off in the direction in which they were going. For practice, they
blew off the heads of the boa-constrictors as they hung from the trees,
and of the other huge snakes that moved along the ground, with
explosive bullets, in every thicket through which they passed, knowing
that the game, never having been shot at, would not take fright at the
noise. Sometimes they came upon great masses of snakes, intertwined
and coiled like worms; in these cases Cortlandt brought his gun into
play, raking them with duck-shot to his heart's content. "As the
function of these reptiles," he explained, "is to form a soil on which
higher life may grow, we may as well help along their metamorphosis by
artificial means." They were impressed by the tremendous cannon-like
reports of their firearms, which they perceived at once resulted from
the great density of the Jovian atmosphere. And this was also a
considerable aid to them in making muscular exertion, for it had just
the reverse effect of rarefied mountain air, and they seldom had to
expand their lungs fully in order to breathe.

The ground continued to be marked with very large footprints. Often
the impressions were those of a biped like some huge bird, except that
occasionally the creature had put down one or both forefeet, and a
thick tail had evidently dragged nearly all the time it walked erect.
Presently, coming to something they had taken for a large flat rock,
they were surprised to see it move. It was about twelve feet wide by
eighteen feet long, while its shell seemed at least a foot thick, and
it was of course the largest turtle the