also have occurred to her.

Too, she bad seen me conversing with other men upon the earth's

surface. She had seen the arrival of the caravan of books and arms,

and ammunition, and the balance of the heterogeneous collection which

I had crammed into the cabin of the iron mole for trans-portation

to Pellucidar.

She had seen all these evidences of a civilization and brain-power

transcending in scientific achieve-ment anything that her race had

produced; nor once had she seen a creature of her own kind.

There could have been but a single deduction in the mind of the

Mahar--there were other worlds than Pellucidar, and the gilak was

a rational being.

Now the creature at my side was creeping slowly toward the near-by

sea. At my hip hung a long-barreled six-shooter--somehow I had

been unable to find the same sensation of security in the newfangled

auto-matics that had been perfected since my first departure from

the outer world--and in my hand was a heavy express rifle.

I could have shot the Mahar with ease, for I knew intuitively that

she was escaping--but I did not.

I felt that if she could return to her own kind with the story of

her adventures, the position of the human race within Pellucidar

would be advanced immensely at a single stride, for at once man

would take his proper place in the considerations of the reptilia.

At the edge of the sea the creature paused and looked back at me.

Then she slid sinuously into the surf.

For several minutes I saw no more of her as she luxuriated in the

cool depths.

Then a hundred yards from shore she rose and there for another

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