Pellucidar

day when I fled before those hideous beasts along the narrow spit of rocky cliff between two narrow fiords toward the Sojar Az. Just

two of us over the cliff. It was a hideous fall. The cliff was almost

plunged into the salt sea. With the impact with the

hand-hold where I might cling for a moment of rest and recuperation. The

Not once did I look behind me, since every unnecessary movement in swimming detracts so much from one’s endurance and speed. Not until I had drawn myself safely

hered a handful of stones to be ready for his assault when he landed, but in a moment I let them fall from my hands. It was evident that the brute either was no swimmer or

reappear. The look of dumb misery in his eyes struck a chord in my breast, for I love dogs. I forgot that he was a vicious, primordial wol

ontradistinction to those who think much and do nothing. Instead, I leaped back into the water and swam out toward the drowning beast. At

pony, I managed to drag him to shore and well up upon the beach. Here I found that

, and returned to him he permitted me to set his broken leg and bind it in splints. I had to tear part of my shirt into bits to obtain a bandage, but at last th

ed together a pile of rocks and set to work to fashion a stone-knife. We were bottled up at the head of the fiord as comp

supply of fresh water — some of which I kept constantly beside the hyaenodon in a huge,

in knocking over with a rock, for long practice as a pitcher on prep-school

what intent interest I watched his first attempt. Close at my hand lay my pile of rocks. Slowly the beast came to his three good feet. He stretch

scape, but finding none he returned in my direction. Slowly he came quite close to me, sni

d, I was a little uncertain as to

ocious thing prowling about the

m again to the feel of those mighty jaws at my

nexperienced sentimentalists. I believe that some animals love their masters, but I doubt very much if their affection is the outcome

cean, for though I could see the sunlight on the water half-way toward the island and upon the island itself, no ray of it fell upon us. We were well within the Land of Awful Shadow. A perpetual

s that the hyaenodon had at last attacked me, but as my eyes opened and I struggled

r world has turned my thews to steel. Even such giants as Ghak the Hairy One have

of, so that almost before the fellow knew that I was awake I was upon my feet with my arms over his shoulders and

e a boulder a few yards away. So nearly was he the color of the rock th

ly now, but charged me with savage cries — a mistake upon their part. The fact that they did not draw their weapons again

reverberated through the rocky fiord, and they had closed up

the hya

quish the wolf-dog the savages forgot all about me, thus giving me an instant in which to snatch a knife from the loin-string of him who had first fallen and

ready for him with knife and bludgeon — also filched from a dead foeman; but he

lay down and commenced to gnaw at the bandage. I was sitting some little distance

ped in front of me and deliberately raised his bandaged leg and pawed my k

d member. As far as I could judge the bone was completely knit. The joint was stiff; when I bent it a little the brute winced — but

body touching mine. I laid my hand upon his head. He did not move. Slowly, I scratched about his ears and neck and

m. Somehow all sense of loneliness vanished, too — I had a dog! I had never guessed precisely what it

trifle and say that this was true of those tribes with which I was most familiar. The Thurians do domesticate the colossal lidi, traversing the great Lidi Plains upon the backs of these

opinion that this is one of the earliest steps from savagery to civ

urely the result of an accident, as, for example, my taming of the hyaenodon, it came about through the desire of tribes who had previously domesticate

een able to reach me, though I had been unable to escape from my natural prison. I glanced about in all directions, searching for an explanation. At

the moment I had forgotten him. But his savage rumbling did not cause me any uneasiness. He glanced quickly about in all directi

en in use by the Mezops. In it were four paddles. I was much de

had paddled out a few yards he plunged through the surf and swam after me. When he had come alongside I grasped the scruff of his neck, and after a considerable

the distance what I took to be huts in a clearing near the shore, I drew quickly into land, for though I had been furnished credentials by Kolk, I was not sufficiently familiar with the tribal characteristics of these people to know whether I should recei

o the beach. Here I dragged up the dugout, hiding it well within the vegetation, and with some loose r

ce of other men than myself. The brute was padding softly at my side, his sensitive nose constantly a

. I did not want Raja to attack any of the people upon whose friendsh

hip. I laid my hand upon it caressingly. As I did so he turned and looked up into my face, hi

you, old man?” I asked. “You’re nothing but a good pup, and the

gs with upcurled, snarlin

I’ll eat you. I’ll bet a doughnut you’re nothing but some kid’

nknown Pellucidar, why, just try it, and you will not wonder that I was glad of the company of this first dog — this living replica of the fierce and now extinct hyaenodon of the outer crust that hunted in savage packs the great elk

looked down at him. He had stopped in his tracks as one turned to stone. A thin ridge of stiff hair bristled

rst I saw nothing. Then a slight movement of the bushes riveted my attention. I thought it must be some wild

I did so a youth arose and fled precipitately in the direction we had been going. Raja struggled to be after hi

cally I was the one. He growled at me. I cuffed him sharply across the nose. He looked it me for a moment in surprised bewilderment, and t

was s

iece of the rope that constituted a part

denced when we had come within sight of the clearing, and the village — the first real village, by the way, that I had ever seen constructed by human Pellucidarians. There was a rude rect

ads. Lidi, by the way, is both the singular and plural form of the noun that describes the huge beasts of burden of the Thurians. They are enormous quadrupeds, eighty or a hundred feet long, with very small heads perched

of the diplodocus of the outer crust’s Jurassic age. I have to take his wor

n astonishment — not only, I presume, because of my strange garmenture, but as well from the

an to be at the throats of the whole aggregation; but I held him in with the leash, though it took all my

ortance. The warriors about him were all fine looking fellows, though shorter and squatter than the Sarians or the Amozites. Their color, too, was

n many ornaments. I didn’t need to ask to know that he was the chief

the Federated Kingdoms of Pellucid

is head aff

Kolk, the son of Goork. I bear a token from Kolk

d. “I am Goork,” he sai

fished into the game-ba

d in silence. My hand sear

as e

stolen with my ar