“You misinterpret me again,” said the professor blandly. “What I intended to convey was that these eruptions were indicative of great seismic changes, in the course of which vast openings might well have occurred in far parts of the earth. However, I am merely defending the pteranodon’s survival as an interesting possibility. As I stated before, Mr. Haynes, I believe the gist of the matter to lie in some error of your diagram.” “We’ll see in a moment,” said Haynes; “for here’s the place. Let it down easy, Johnston. Wait, Professor, here’s the light. Now I’ll convince you.” Holding the lantern with one hand, he uncovered one of the tracks with the other. The mark was perfectly preserved. “Good God!” said the professor under his breath. He dropped on his hands and knees beside the print, and as he compared the to-day’s mark on the sand with the rock print of millions of years ago, his breath came hard. Indeed, none of the party breathed as regularly as usual. When the scientist lifted his head, his face was twitching nervously. “I have to ask your pardon, Mr. Haynes,” he said. “Your drawing was faithful.” “But what in Heaven’s name does it mean?” cried Dick Colton. “It means that we are on the verge of the most important discovery of modern times,” said the professor. “Savants have hitherto scouted the suggestions to be deduced from the persistent legend of the roc and from certain almost universal North American Indian lore, notwithstanding that the theory of some monstrous, winged creature widely different from any recognised existing forms is supported by more convincing proofs. In the north of England, in 1844, reputable witnesses found the tracks, after a night’s fall of snow, of a creature with a pendent tail, which made flights over houses and other obstructions, leaving a trail much like this before us. There are other corroborative instances of a similar nature. In view of the present evidence, I would say that this unquestionably was a pteranodon, or a descendant little altered, and a gigantic specimen, for these tracks are distinctly larger than the fossil marks. Gentlemen, I congratulate you both on your part in so epoch-making a discovery.” “Do you expect a sane man to believe this thing?” Haynes demanded. “That’s what I feel,” said Everard Colton. “But, on your own showing of the evidence, what else is there to believe?” “But, see here,” Haynes expostulated, all the time feeling as if he were arguing in and against a dream. “If this is a flying creature, how explain the footprints leading up to Serdholm’s body, as well as away from it?”