WITH the dawning of another day, our courage returned. And as soon as it was light enough to see we rose and peered about--still a bit fearfully--in search of the living nightmare I had shot down. We did not have far to seek. A few rods from where we stood, a confused, black mass rested upon the ground, looking so much like the wreck of a cracked-up airplane that for a moment I felt sure I had inadvertently brought down an aircraft. But as we cautiously approached it, I saw it was no machine of fabric and metal, but the body of a gigantic beast. With amazed eyes, half-incredulously, I stepped nearer and examined it, while Maliche, all his superstitions aroused, fell on his knees and bowed his head to the earth. I could not believe my eyes, could not credit my senses, and yet there was no doubt about it. The broken motionless thing was a gigantic Pterodactyl! There were the great bat-like membranous wings now crumpled, torn and twisted. There was the long skinny neck ending in the immense scaly head with six-foot, sharp-toothed jaws. There were the huge, baleful, staring green eyes now glazed in death, and there were the powerful, long-clawed, alligator-like feet. The thing was a survivor of long-past ages, a flesh and blood fossil! I had killed a monster that was supposed to have become extinct hundreds of thousands of years before! I had brought down a specimen that--had I had the means of preserving it--would have brought me a fortune, that would have made me famous. And as I gazed at the gigantic, horrible looking, but now harmless thing, I bitterly regretted that it must lie there and rot, that it should provide many a meal for the hungry vultures already circling overhead, that it would be forever lost to science and that--if I ever succeeded in reaching civilization--my story would unquestionably be scoffed at and I would be dubbed a liar. I would have given much for a camera, even for the possibility of preserving a portion of the monstrous thing. Even in death it was horrible, uncanny, fiendish, and with a start I remembered Maliche’s terrified words of the night----“Izputeque!” and the words of Katchilcan; “and one must face the demon Ixputeque.” Was this fearsome prehistoric creature the demon? Was it possible he might have existed, might have haunted this spot for centuries. Was it possible he had been here when the Book of Kukulcan was made? Or were there others; had the things survived here when in all other parts of the world they had become extinct? And would the “Fiend Neztpehua” eventuate? Would it prove to be some weird, monstrous, prehistoric leftover? There was no use in speculating, but with that crumbled Pterodactyl lying on the ground before me almost anything seemed possible, even probable. To Maliche, however, the creature was far more than a dead winged lizard. To him it was the incarnate form of his demon-like god, Izputeque, and he was muttering prayers and making a blood offering to it as I turned away.