140 Ancient Giants 



forsooth He had carried me back to the close of 

 the Cretaceous, that wonderful Age of Reptiles 

 when land and air and sea were filled with, to 

 us, strange forms of life; when great lizards 

 shook the earth with their majestic tread, sea- 

 serpents and great bony fishes ruled the sea, 

 while huge fiying reptiles fiapped their leathery 

 wings over the deep. When I thought of all the 

 creatures I had hunted for forty years, and dug 

 their mouldering skeletons from an old ocean 

 bed a thousand miles from the existing seas, from 

 some great lake bottom, or the flood plain of an 

 ancient river. I asked myself: Will He who 

 brought me here leave me to suffer and to die? 

 How often he had rescued me from sudden death. 

 Shall I fear to lay me down to sleep alone with 

 Him in this land never seen before by mortal 

 eyes. Oh no! So peacefully I laid me down to 

 rest humming Scott's famous lines: 



"The heath this night shall be my bed, 

 A bracken curtain for my head. 

 My lullaby the warders tread. 



Far, far from love and thee, Mary. 



And so I fell asleep. No rude sounds disturbed ; 

 when the morning sun streamed in my eyes I 

 awoke refreshed for the thrilling adventures of 

 the day. It was spring, every living thing 

 throbbed with life, the sap was surging through 

 the trees arrayed in their brightest tints, the 



