geance. It was so easy for him
to outstrip these lumbering monsters who were spouting their fetid,
musky breath close upon his heels. He stumbled carefully at every
other step. He let them feel that at the next stride they would
transfix him. He led them on, the earth shaking beneath their tread,
till another fifty feet would have brought them out upon the skirts of
the meadow. But at this point, wearied by such an unwonted burst of
effort, the King halted sulkily. He had not had an eye put out. He
wanted to give it up. But his mate came right on, thirsting for her
revenge.

The man was not content with her pursuit alone. Spurting ahead, he
gathered up two handfuls of sand and gravel, whirled about, and drove
them with all his strength into the King's cold eyes. It worked.
Smarting and half blinded, the monster forgot his weariness, and came
charging along furiously in the trail of his mate.

They were stupid, these Lizard Kings, with more brains in their pelvic
arches than in their giant skulls. Because the puny man-creature went
stumbling almost within reach of their beaks, they imagined they were
going to catch him. That he would go dodging around thickets which
they crashed over blindly, and would then return to present himself
again deliberately before them, did not strike them as at all
suspicious. Their dull but relentless hate once thoroughly aroused, as
long as he was in sight and they could move the mighty columns of
their legs, they would pursue him.

Through the last heavy fringe of bush and leafage they pursued him,
and with a great crashing of branches came out upon the open,
short-grass meadow. Still the man-creature stumbled on, straight out
into the open, and still they followed, raging silently.

The black herds of the Dinoceras stopped feeding all at once, and
raised their vicious heads and stared.

There were countless cows in the herd, horned like the bulls, but
smaller, and without the rending tusks. The cows, at this season, all
had young. After one long, comprehending stare at the two gigantic
mottled shapes bearing down upon them, the herd put itself in motion.
The man-creature they hardly noticed, he seemed so insignificant.

With eyes that took in everything, coolly and sagaciously, the man
observed that the motion of the herd was an ordered one. The black
beasts were deftly sorting themselves out to meet the danger. The
bulls came thrusting themselves to the front--a terrific array whi