the mind of each and mingled with it a similar picture with himself
as victim should they fail to make Fort Dinosaur before dark.

And so they plunged forward at reckless speed, their clothes,
their hands, their faces torn by the retarding underbrush that
reached forth to hinder them. Again and again they fell; but be
it to their credit that the one always waited and helped the
other and that into the mind of neither entered the thought or
the temptation to desert his companion--they would reach the fort
together if both survived, or neither would reach it.

They encountered the usual number of savage beasts and reptiles;
but they met them with a courageous recklessness born of desperation,
and by virtue of the very madness of the chances they took, they
came through unscathed and with the minimum of delay.

Shortly after noon they reached the end of the plateau.
Before them was a drop of two hundred feet to the valley beneath.
To the left, in the distance, they could see the waters of the
great inland sea that covers a considerable portion of the area
of the crater island of Caprona and at a little lesser distance
to the south of the cliffs they saw a thin spiral of smoke arising
above the tree-tops.

The landscape was familiar--each recognized it immediately
and knew that that smoky column marked the spot where Dinosaur
had stood. Was the fort still there, or did the smoke arise
from the smoldering embers of the building they had helped to
fashion for the housing of their party? Who could say!