No sound answered. Silence held that flowerless world like a vise, that world that had never heard the song of a bird, but a rumbling vibration in the distance seemed to the boy like some vast leviathan stirring in its sleep. Sure was he that he saw one of those sprawling shapes—which, near by, seemed like stone—heave itself upward and sway a monstrous neck. Straight in his path, one of the murky masses lay, huge as though the earth had spawned a creature vaster than a whale. In panic, Perry forced the Thing that carried him to swerve to the left. As he raced by, the boy forced himself to look at the sprawling bulk. Shapeless and moveless as a block of stone it lay. But when, a second later, some impulse moved the lad to turn his head back to look again, the seeming stone had lurched itself across his path as though to bar any returning way. With a shiver, the boy’s glance turned to the creature that he rode. Its horse-like head and short, coarse mane gave a clue that its light limbs and four spreading toes seemed to deny. He was nearly thrown to the ground as the Thing shied, then reared, nearly on its haunches. And Perry, looking to see the cause of fear, distinctly saw a quiver run over another monstrous mass immediately before him, like the rippling muscles on the back of a black panther about to spring. He drove his heels into his steed. “They’re waking,” he cried hoarsely. “I’ve only got until the sun goes down!” Through the humid swamp, spotted with its foul giant brood, that moved, yet never seemed to move, he rode, panic knocking at his ribs. The sinking sun bore down with it his hopes, and as the shadows grew more slanting, the sense of silent life around him grew more threatening. A breeze with a tang of cold in it swept over the swamp and the grip of danger tightened. Now, in the distance, the masses could be seen to drag their slow length along, but near at hand, all was still. “They’re only waiting,” he thought, “waiting for the dusk.” From under a huge flat block that bore a fair resemblance to a giant tortoise-shell, a wicked head with lidless green eyes and a turtle beak darted out. The animal he bestrode leaped as though a snake had struck. And, with the leap came a new thing. Even as the boy watched, the rough mane dwindled and a smooth red-brown coat glinted in the darkening sun. The neck grew longer and more pliant and the swift lumbering gallop gave place to the leaping bounds of some creature that man had never ridden before. Perry’s only thought was to go on—on—no matter what he rode, to go on—and out of that swamp where the monstrous reptiles were. But the strangeness of the marvel held him when he saw in the center of the forehead of the Thing, just in front of the ears, a gleam of white like a milk-tooth. “It’s—it’s a horn,” he muttered.