legs and thick, stubbed tail were threshing feebly in the
mud as though it were in distress; and its eyes, so small as to be
invisible in its repulsive head, were glazed and dull.

"Was that what we heard back a ways?" wondered Joyce.

"Probably," said Wichter. His eyes shone as he gazed at the nightmare
shape. Impulsively he took a step toward the stirring mud.

"Don't be entirely insane," snapped Joyce, catching his arm.

"I must see it closer," said Wichter, tugging to be free.

"Then we'll climb a tree and look down on it. We'll probably be safer
up off the ground anyway."

* * * * *

They ascended the nearest jungle giant--whose rubbery bark was so
ringed and scored as to be as easy to climb as a staircase--to the
first great bough, about fifty feet from the ground, and edged out
till they hung over the rim of the quagmire. From there, with the aid
of their binoculars, they expected to see the dying monster in every
detail. But when they looked toward the pool it was not in sight!

"Were we seeing things?" exclaimed Wichter, rubbing his glasses. "I'd
have sworn it was lying there!"

"It was," said Joyce grimly. "Look at the pool. That'll tell you where
it went."

The black, secretive surface was bubbling and waving as though, down
in its depths, a terrific fight were taking place.

"Something came up and dragged our ten-legged lizard down to its den.
Then that something's brothers got onto the fact that a feast was
being held, and rushed in. That pool would be no place for a
before-breakfast dip!"

* * * * *

Wichter started to say something in reply, then gazed, hypnotized, at
the opposite wall of the jungle.

From the dense screen of lavender foliage stretched a glistening,
scale-armored neck, as thick as a man's body at its thinnest point,
which was just behind a tremendous-jawed crocodilian head. It tapered
back for a distance of at least thirty feet, to merge into a body as
big as that of a terrestial whale, that was supported by four squat,
ponderous legs.

Moving with surprising rapidity, the enormous thing slid into the mud
and began ploughing a way, belly deep, toward the pool. Shapeless,
slow-writhing forms were cast up in its wake, to quiver for a moment
in the sunlight and then melt below the mud again.

One of the bloated, formless mud-crawlers was snapped up in the huge
jaws with an abrupt plunge of the long neck, and t