invention, and this afforded a most happy diversion, although the
deepening twilight hindered any very extensive examination.

Cooper Edgecombe showed himself in a vastly different light while
thus engaged, his shrewd questions, his apt comments, quite
effectually removing the far from agreeable doubts born of his
earlier words and demeanour.

"Well, if he's looney, it's only on some points, not as the whole
porker, anyway," confidentially asserted Waldo, when an
opportunity offered. "Coax him to tell how he knocked the
redskin out, uncle Phaeton."

Little need of recalling that perplexing incident to the worthy
savant, for, try as he might, Featherwit could not keep from
brooding over that wondrous collection of relics pertaining to a
long-since extinct people. Of course, the last one had perished
ages ago; and yet--and yet--

Through his half-bewildered brain flashed the accounts given by
the coast tribes, members of which he had so frequently
interviewed concerning this unknown land, one and all of whom had
more or less to say in regard to a strange people, terrible
fighters, mighty hunters, one burning glance from whose eyes
carried death and decay unto all who were foolhardy enough even
to attempt to pass those mighty barriers, built up by a
beneficent nature. Only for that nearly impassable wall, the
entire earth would be overrun and dominated by these monsters in
human guise.