I tried to recall him, but he would pay no attention to me, and as
I couldn't see him sacrificed, I, too, stopped and faced the monster.
The creature appeared to be more impressed with Nobs than by us and
our firearms, for it stopped as the Airedale dashed at it growling,
and struck at him viciously with its powerful jaws.

Nobs, though, was lightning by comparison with the slow thinking
beast and dodged his opponent's thrust with ease. Then he raced
to the rear of the tremendous thing and seized it by the tail.
There Nobs made the error of his life. Within that mottled organ
were the muscles of a Titan, the force of a dozen mighty
catapults, and the owner of the tail was fully aware of the
possibilities which it contained. With a single flip of the tip
it sent poor Nobs sailing through the air a hundred feet above
the ground, straight back into the clump of acacias from which
the beast had leaped upon our kill--and then the grotesque thing
sank lifeless to the ground.

Olson and von Schoenvorts came up a minute later with their men;
then we all cautiously approached the still form upon the ground.
The creature was quite dead, and an examination resulted in
disclosing the fact that Whitely's bullet had pierced its heart,
and mine had severed the spinal cord.

"But why didn't it die instantly?" I exclaimed.

"Because," said von Schoenvorts in his disagreeable way, "the
beast is so large, and its nervous organization of so low a
caliber, that it took all this time for the intelligence of death
to reach and be impressed upon the minute brain. The thing was