A Gun for Dinosaur and Other Imaginative Tales

For a couple of days, the scientists got ahead of me, so I was too busy with records to keep track of Winthrop Fish. I did notice that Harry Constant seemed more bored and restless than usual, getting in the scientists' hair and asking silly questions.

One morning I saw Harry Constant, Winthrop Fish, and Phil O'Sullivan all going out together with a rifle and a shotgun, much as Fish and I had gone out a few days before. I went about my business until a couple of hours later, when these three appeared running madly towards the camp.

All I know about this collecting-trip is from the stories of those who were on it, mostly the story of Phil O'Sullivan.

It seems Constant got O'Sullivan aside that morning and suggested a wonderful joke on Fish. O'Sullivan was dubious, in the light of Sander's revelations and May's orders, but Constant could talk him into anything. I don't know how much this stunt was motivated by Constant's broad sense of humor — sadistic sense of humor, I should say — and how much by the wish for revenge.

The first step was to steal one of the phosphorus grenades from their box in the equipment tent. Of course May had said those were to be saved for emergencies, but a little thing like that never stopped Harry Constant.

They'd follow the isthmus between the two lakes in front of the camp and go on to the nearest branch of the Beebe. There, there was a kind of dome of mud that some of the little amphibians had built as a communal nest. Constant would point that out as a colony of the deadly naupredas. Then he'd throw the grenade at it and yelclass="underline"

"Run for your lives! They're swarming out! They're headed this way like a million slimy snakes!"

Fish would fall into a panic and race back to camp yelling the alarm, while the other two followed at their leisure and laughed themselves sick.

Up to the point of throwing the grenade, everything worked out. What the pilots hadn't noticed was that about five yards from the mud dome was a real colony of naupredas, the spherical membrane that forms around the colony just showing above the water like the back of a whale.

Constant threw his bomb and yelled: "Run for your lives! They're swarming — by God, they are swarming! This is no joke!"

The grenade went off with a big burst of streamers of white smoke. A lot of particles of phosphorus struck the membrane, burned through it instantly, and aroused the naupredas, which were probably getting ready to burst their bag and set out on a march anyway. In ten seconds the swamp was alive with thousands of wriggling naupredas, from babies a couple of feet long up to oldsters of fifteen or twenty feet, all writhing along and opening and closing those three-cornered mouths.

The other animals instantly changed the tune of their grunting and croaking and squeaking, and the swamp came alive with slimy wrigglers and crawlers and hoppers, all getting away as fast as they could.

The three men took one look and ran. On hard level ground, a column of naupredas would be easy to run from, as they don't go faster than a fast walk. But on Suomi, where you sink up to your knees every few steps, or fall in a hole full of water, or have to climb over or squirm under fallen trunks, and push through clumps of giant reeds, it's something else.

When they were halfway to camp, O'Sullivan, being last, looked back and saw that the ribbon of wrigglers, three or four yards wide, was gaining. He dropped the shotgun to make more speed. Constant was number one with Fish close behind him.

Then Fish, who had the rifle, stopped and waved O'Sullivan past him. He panted: "Gwan — I'll shoot — rouse camp ..."

O'Sullivan was too terrified to argue. Fish began shooting at the leading naupredas as fast as he could work the bolt. It didn't bother the naupredas, which are such a low form of life that you have to be awfully lucky to kill one with a rifle shot. But the shooting roused the camp.

Everybody dropped what he was doing. The croaking and chirping of the animals seemed louder than usual. We were all looking at the woods beyond the isthmus when Constant and O'Sullivan ran out. As they got closer they waved their arms and shouted but were too short of breath to say anything we could understand.

They were halfway across the isthmus when Fish appeared. He'd dropped the rifle when he'd emptied the magazine and now was gaining on the others fast, so they reached the camp only a few jumps ahead of him. I never saw a man run so strongly, especially through mud in heavy boots.