THE TRAPPER TRAPPED
The best that Sure-dart and the man could do in the way of providing
dinner for the company was to catch a big eel, and to knock over with a
stone what they called a worm-tail. This was a stout little bird about
as large as a crow, but with small wings, and a tail that looked like
a single long, large feather. It had teeth, and was a flesh-eater, and
was pretty tough for food, but this did not trouble the hungry guard.
They ate both him and the eel with no preparation except skinning the
eel, and cutting off his head, and doing about the same with the bird.
As yet these people had never eaten or even seen any sort of cooked
food.
The rest of the day and the following night passed, and there was
no appearance of danger, and no sign whatever that the Fishers had
lingered in the neighborhood. So Bull-head, following the orders of
Big-axe, broke camp, and set off on the trail of the main body. It
was understood that Big-axe would hasten his party along as fast as
possible; but that would not mean anything like the speed of the
smaller company, which would probably come up before the general party
was settled in its new quarters. Bull-head knew where to find the
main body, for he had once before been in these parts, and so knew the
general lay of the land; and besides, Big-axe had pointed out the top
of a small, oddly shaped mountain that was to serve as a guide. Big-axe
meant to pitch camp on a kind of broad shelf of this mountain, where it
would be rather easy to make a good defensive fight, and whence it was
but a short distance down to a ravine where there was a brook.
The way soon became wilder and rougher, as they began to get among the
hills and straggling woods, but they could now get some shade, and
here and there a refreshing breeze found an opening and reached them.
At this point they found more trees of the oak and beech kind, and
fewer of the palm family, and in general the surroundings became less
suggestive of the tropics. They had long ago parted with the reeds and
canes, and the low, snake-rooted willows, and the only vegetation of
the familiar kind that was at all common was the rush-like grass. This,
which was much coarser than the grass of to-day, still covered some of
the little valley-bottoms and openings among the trees, and also ran
in with the few kinds of bushes that were common both among the woods
and in the openings. Some of these bushes were bright with berries, but
only one kind was considered eatable, and that was tart and slightly
bitter. On the way to this higher region, on a dry and stony level,
they saw some scrubby bushes bearing a small, unpromising green fruit,
and these bushes were covered with little prickly points. The fruit was
of no value, and it was to take ages to make it so; but in time this
primitive prickly pear was to develop into the pear of our gardens.
Naturally, the live creatures changed with the change of surroundings.
Up here were none of the kinds of fish-lizards, great turtles, or even
the large dinosaurs (“three-horns” and “death-beasts”) that were so
common among the marshes, and on the skirts of the surrounding hills.
Instead were small quadrupeds (there were as yet no large ones in
existence), such as huge conies, gigantic rats,--though these last were
also found in the marsh country,--and small lizard-creatures, some of
which walked on their hind legs. On the farther slopes of these hills,
as Sure-dart had heard, were occasionally seen the little horse-like
creatures that the Rock-people called “scamperers,” and in fact, these
were now and then to be met with as far east as the borders of the
marsh region, though they were nowhere numerous. Their day was later,
when conditions were more favorable for them, and when they increased
in numbers, and developed in size, till at last they could fairly be
called horses. But that was some millions of years later. At this time
they were little bigger than our foxes, and had but a small show of
mane and tail, with toed feet, instead of hoofs. They had four of these
toes on their front feet, and three on the hind.
Of snakes there were several kinds, some of them poisonous. There were
a few varieties of birds, including the queer little fellows with teeth
and long, worm-like tails, and also a bird that had a sort of hair,
instead of feathers, and no wings to speak of. Here, as on the lower
levels, might be looked for--particularly in the evening--the dreadful
bat-creature with toothed nose, or bill, and twenty feet of spread to
his skinny wings.
Neither here, nor anywhere else in the world, at that time, was a
single deer, antelope, lion, tiger, elephant, or any other haired or
furred animal of any size; among the trees were not to be seen darting
monkeys, or the flash of bright-feathered birds; and there was not one
songster to give a touch of cheerfulness to the sombre recesses of the
evergreens, or the more open arches of the oaks and beeches.
There was something almost uncanny, as the Scotch would say, about this
strange wilderness. It was not made less so by the fact that the woods
proper were not generally very dense; for the kinds of trees now found
everywhere in the temperate zone were then new on the earth, and they
were particularly sparse in this higher region, so that what there
was of forest was made up chiefly of groups of evergreens, yew-like
conifers and intervening huge ferns, together with thorny bushes almost
as large as small trees.
But neither of the boys paid very much attention to these less striking
and exciting matters; they were chiefly on the lookout, particularly
Hop-foot, for something new and strange among the animal inhabitants,
and both boys constantly had a dart ready for any such. For a time they
saw nothing in the least worth bothering with, but soon after leaving
the rocks and trees behind them something did appear of a sort to make
them pay eager heed.
They were near a kind of long, rather shoal cut, or narrow valley, one
which opened almost or quite upon the outside plain, when something
scurried out of a thicket, and went bounding down the side of the
hill. A single glance showed that it was the rare little scamperer, or
horse-creature.
“Oh, there is what I want!” fairly yelled Hop-foot. “Head him off,
Sure-dart; run down the bank and turn him back! He can’t get across
that place.”
The scamperer did seem, in fact, to be almost in a trap. At the bottom
of the hill was a rocky gully with almost perpendicular sides, and
this ran at right angles with the general cut of the valley, and on
one side turned back and up into the hill. On the other it stopped
abruptly at the end of a practically straight line. The situation will
be better understood by comparing the gully to the head of an ordinary
hammer, the claws-end standing for the part of the gully that turned
back and up, and the pounding end for the straight part. The path that
the scamperer was following went toward the gully as the handle of the
hammer goes into the head.
Sure-dart glanced at Bull-head, seeking permission to go, and got a
consenting nod. He was away on the instant, going down the slope with a
speed that would astonish a boy of to-day. Hop-foot, rather fast on his
legs, in spite of his infirmity, hopped and skipped down the other side
of the slope, or toward the end of the claws of the hammer. Bull-head,
for a wonder, relaxed a little of his gruff strictness, and told two
of the men to join the boys. One of these men was Wing-foot, who, as
it will be remembered, was the fastest runner in the tribe, and the
other was not very much slower. Wing-foot followed the younger boy, and
the other man (his name was Long-shanks) took the general direction of
Sure-dart, but swung more to the left.
Wing-foot soon passed to the front on his line, and Sure-dart was
quickly near the straight end of the gully. The scamperer kept rather
hesitatingly along, seeming to falter as he saw the strange creatures
after him, but at last was frightened into a spurt, and dashed down to
the brink of the gully. There he stopped, seemed to gather his wits and
realize what a corner he was in, and the next instant whirled to the
right, and made up the slope.
“Stop him, Wing-foot,” yelled Hop-foot, as he saw the creature heading
straight toward them. He spread out his own legs and arms as he spoke.
But this gave the scamperer a new fright. He stopped once more,
wheeled, and then headed again for the gully.
“Don’t crowd him!” roared Long-shanks, “or he may jump, and break his
neck!”
This seemed likely, and the others checked themselves, and went on more
slowly.
The scamperer went this way and that, now in a terrible panic, and at
last poked his head over a little break in the edge, and looked down.
In a twinkling he dropped his fore-quarters over, and before the
hunters could fairly make a new start he was entirely out of sight.
Hop-foot shouted with vexation and disappointment, and even the older
pursuers crossly grunted. They all kept on till they were at the edge
of the gully, though not now with any real hope, and successively
peered over.
Wing-foot, who was the first, broke out in a barbarian cluck, but did
not speak. He waited till Hop-foot had come skipping and limping up.
So, too, did Sure-dart and Long-shanks, as they also outstripped the
boy and looked over.
“What is it? What are you looking at? Is he killed?” puffed Hop-foot.
He looked over himself before anybody could answer the questions.
There was a mere little furrow that led slopingly from the small cut in
the bank down perhaps thirty feet. Here there was a shelf, and after
that it was a straight drop of forty feet to the bottom of the ravine.
On the shelf, which was not much more than big enough to hold him,
stood the scamperer.
“Ooo-hoo!” triumphed Hop-foot, in a high cry, “that settled your game!”
“Not quite,” said Long-shanks, who, as it appeared, knew something
about scamperers. “We can’t go down there without a rope,” he
explained, “and when we do, it will scare him so he will jump off. I
know the fellow well enough for that.”
According to this the primitive horse was subject to a desperate kind
of panic, the same as the modern animal, and under that frenzy would
jump unhesitatingly to his death.
“We can make a good enough rope out of some creepers,” said Hop-foot,
“and as for the rest of it, why can’t somebody go around and stand just
below him? He would then be as scared to jump as to stand still.”
This did seem plausible, and after a little discussion Long-shanks said
that he would skirt the gully (going around, of course, by the short
end), and stand below the shelf.
He did this, and very soon appeared below. Meanwhile, they had found,
at the edge of a neighboring patch of semi-tropical trees, some long,
tough creepers which they twisted together to make a sufficiently
serviceable rope. It would easily bear the weight of two ordinary men.
“I will go down,” said Wing-foot. “I am strong and not very heavy.”
The rope was long enough to allow a surplus that could be weighted
down; and as stones, big and little, were plenty, it did not take long
to put a heavy check-weight on the spare end. Sure-dart and Hop-foot
could then easily manage the rest of it, pulling sufficiently hard to
bring Wing-foot and the scamperer to the top. The man would, of course,
be able to do something for himself, as the little path that the
scamperer had used would be immediately before him.
He made sure that the rope was fast under his arms, and stepped to the
edge. But there he stopped. So, too, did Sure-dart and Hop-foot.
There was an excellent reason. It was a reason that suddenly made them
bend over the verge, and yell like wild creatures at Long-shanks. As
they yelled they pointed, motioning at something behind him. He turned,
as the sense of what they meant struck him: with that he understood all.
The other side of the gully was by no means so precipitous as this; and
in one place, nearly opposite, it came down in a long shoulder of rocks
and loose gravel. There were some trees and thorny bushes at the head
of this natural path, and pushing through the tangle was what looked at
first like a double row of yellowish palm-leaf fans, all gently waving.
There were at least ten or twelve of them, and they were carried at a
height, for the first one, of perhaps five feet, rising to ten, and
then, at about the same slope, dropping lower, till the last was hidden
by the others.
Long-shanks set his lips, turned, and started at a run up the gully.
He had taken no more than three steps when the strange fans gave a
quicker wave, the bushes snapped and parted, and a smallish reptile
head, bill-snouted, and covered with yellow scales, broke into sight.
A broad breast, and short, outward-bowed legs followed, and then came
more of the fans, these now showing as great, upright plates along the
creature’s curved back. But two of these plates were half torn away,
blood was trickling down the creature’s shoulders, and his bill-mouth
was drooping open.
This much of him was scarcely in sight when he put his fore feet down
the little slope, slid forward, as some gravel gave way under him, and
all in a flash lost his balance, rolling end over end down the slope.
For a moment the watchers saw a sight that seemed hardly real or of
the sane world. The monster was not under twenty feet long, and was
of a bulk to weigh several tons. This great shape, flashing first a
white belly, like a monstrous frog, then an enormous tail, dusky green,
covered with scales and banded plates, and spiked near the end, and as
often as the back came fairly up flapping the great, living fans--this
seemingly impossible thing lurched and floundered its tremendous way
down the slope, until it brought up against the tall stump of a broken
tree.
With one more lurch, seemingly little hurt, and not at all confused,
the giant righted himself, and started at a lumbering waddle down
what remained of the slope. Just here he caught sight of the fleeing
Long-shanks. With that kind of machine-noise--mostly a hiss like
escaping steam--that seemed to be the one loud note of the great
lizards, the monster jerked up his huge tail, and lunged forward in
pursuit.
“What is it? Can it catch him? What shall we do?”
This, with gasps, from the startled and horrified Hop-foot.
But Sure-dart and Wing-foot had already started at a run up the line
of the ravine. Yet Wing-foot, mindful that this was the chief’s son,
turned his head a little, and shouted, almost from the corner of his
mouth:
“It’s an old bull thorn-tail, and he’s hurt and ugly.”
The boy understood now. The stegosaurus, as modern men of science have
named the creature, was one of the giant dinosaurs which had at this
time become rare, and which soon afterwards wholly disappeared. He was
huge, and doubtless rather slow, and perhaps usually peaceable, but
from his general shape, and his bulk, and his mighty tail (which he was
able to use as a kind of huge spiked mace) he must have been dangerous
to rouse. A large one stood some ten feet high at the top of his
arched back, and was heavier than a good-sized elephant. If one of the
survivors of the species, having strayed from his usual haunts near the
marshes, or by the great lake itself, had been irritated by fighting
with some other monster, and then had caught sight of a smaller,
fleeing creature, he would be likely to start in pursuit. Perhaps the
strangest thing about the monster, and a strange thing of itself, was
that it had what might be called two brains. One very small brain was
in the usual place in the head, and the other was on the rump, near the
backbone. It would be more exact to say that this brain was a strange
enlargement of the spinal cord, but with some functions that the cord
does not usually have, and which, in fact, we do not fully understand.
It may have helped him, as his other brain was so small, to direct the
movements of his spiked tail.
Hop-foot learned this (though of course nothing of the scientific
part) at a later time; just now he was thinking of the chance
Long-shanks had in the race, and what could be done to help the poor
hunter. He knew, of course, that he could not get back to Bull-head
in time to accomplish anything, and on the whole, he felt so helpless
that he merely squatted down where he was. He had not done any clear
thinking, it need hardly be said, but had merely grasped vaguely at
the thought that he might do something. Other than this he was staring
down, his heart, as the saying is, in his mouth, at the half-naked,
swift-speeding hunter, and the arched-backed, lumbering monster, its
great fans waving--the two passing, almost like one of our modern
moving pictures, rapidly before his eyes.
One thing was already clear: the monster, in spite of his seeming
clumsiness, was managing to heave his great body along at what was
perilously near a fast gait; at least, it was a gait that was bringing
him every moment nearer the man.