would bar the progress of men formed as we are. The lair of such a
monster would not have been disturbed for hundreds--or thousands--of
years. Moreover, these creatures must have occupied places quite
inaccessible to man. A snake who could make himself comfortable in a
quagmire, a hundred feet deep, would be protected on the outskirts by
such stupendous morasses as now no longer exist, or which, if they exist
anywhere at all, can be on very few places on the earth's surface. Far
be it from me to say that in more elemental times such things could not
have been. The condition belongs to the geologic age--the great birth
and growth of the world, when natural forces ran riot, when the struggle
for existence was so savage that no vitality which was not founded in a
gigantic form could have even a possibility of survival. That such a
time existed, we have evidences in geology, but there only; we can never
expect proofs such as this age demands. We can only imagine or surmise
such things--or such conditions and such forces as overcame them."




CHAPTER VI--HAWK AND PIGEON


At breakfast-time next morning Sir Nathaniel and Mr. Salton were seated
when Adam came hurriedly into the room.

"Any news?" asked his uncle mechanically.

"Four."

"Four what?" asked Sir Nathaniel.