Jongor- the Complete Tales Read online

  “Shoot it!” Varsey yelled, fumbling with his rifle.

  Hofer sighed. “With what, my friend? Those tons of flesh cannot be stopped by anything short of a cannon.

  Do you have a cannon in your vest pocket?”

  THE dinosaur was still within the trees. They could follow its lumbering progress by the disturbance it created. Behind them the pterodactyls flapped relentlessly.

  “But it’s cutting off our retreat!” Varsey screeched. “Those damned birds will be on us in minutes. You’re the guide here. Do something, damn you!”

  “What would you suggest, my friend?” Hofer answered.

  “Anything! There are caves in the cliffs! We could hide in one of them!”

  “And have the pterodactyls surround us? We could pile them up with bullets in front of the cave until their dead bodies blocked the entrance, or until we ran out of ammunition. Then the rest would claw us out. No, it is no use. This is the end of the trail for us.”

  Hofer shrugged resignedly. “There are cliffs on one side and swamps on the other. The pterodactyls are coming behind us and a dinosaur cuts off our retreat. Run we cannot. We will not be able to fight long. This is the end. We will die here.”

  Ann Hunter felt the hopelessness in the guide’s voice. She knew it was the measure of their doom. Until now, nothing had seemed to daunt Hofer. He had been tireless, he had driven himself relentlessly, as if some hidden, secret urge forced him to endure all obstacles. He had faced the natives without flinching.

  He didn’t flinch now. He merely sighed, and said:

  “If I saw anything to do, I would do it. All I can say is, if you know any prayers, now is the time to say them.” He was stolidly resigned to his fate. It was as if the secret urge that had made him an irresistible force in motion had here met an immovable object, with the result that all drive had gone out of him.

  The dinosaur lumbered forward. It came out of the group of trees. It moved slowly, but with the certainty of resistless doom. Three sets of human eyes were fixed on it.

  Only when it was completely clear of the trees did Ann Hunter see how strange that dinosaur really was. There was an incredible hump just behind its neck. She had seen pictures of dinosaurs, she had seen reconstructions of the gigantic beasts in museums. But never had she seen a dinosaur with this kind of hump.

  She could not believe her eyes. Then recognition was forced home to her as the beast came nearer.

  “It’s he!” she shouted, wild exultation in her voice.

  Jongor was the hump behind the neck of the dinosaur!

  “MOVE faster, thou great hulk of useless meat!” Jongor urgently commanded. “Can you not see the teros are coming? Move, I say. Now is no time to loaf. Hump yourself. Sleeping time is past. Now your great bulk and little brains are badly needed. Swing along, you lumbering rascal!”

  The dino had been sleeping among the trees when Jongor approached. It was not yet fully awakened.

  Jongor kept his eyes on the three people. He knew they had seen him.

  They could not well avoid noticing the commotion the dinosaur was making as it lumbered forward. They were staring at him.

  The teros were flapping nearer every second. Some of them, launching themselves from higher places along the cliff, were managing to maintain themselves in the air. There was a chance that these few would be able to fly all the way to their intended victims.

  “Run to me!” Jongor yelled. “Or the teros will get you.”

  HE had decided to come to their aid for three reasons. One, they were white, as he was. But that was not much of a reason. A much better reason was the girl. Somehow he did not want to see her die. About the two men, he cared nothing. One of them had, even tried to kill him.

  But the girl reminded him of another girl he had once known, so very long ago: his mother. And the teros had killed this other girl, which brought Jongor to his third and most compelling reason of all: he hated the teros. He hated them with a blind, bitter, unreasoning fury. For they had killed the only two people he had ever loved, his parents.

  Because of that, all his life Jongor had taken a terrible toll of the pterodactyls. He had slain them with arrows, he had raided their nests, he had killed their young. He had set cunning traps for them, and tricky snares.

  If he could have done it, he would have killed all the pterodactyls in the whole world. And by the same token, everything the pterodactyls attacked was automatically his friend.

  One of the teros that had apparently been asleep when the three people passed under its ledge, now awakened. It looked down. The three two-legged creatures were too far away. It saw Jongor on the back of the dinosaur. Jongor was within range of its glide.

  It launched itself straight toward, the bronzed young giant. Jongor saw it coming. The dinosaur was out of the swamp now, galloping along on hard ground. The tero swooped.

  “This for you, tero!” Jongor yelled, releasing the arrow. The shaft split the heart of the lizard-bird. It collapsed in mid-flight, and fell like the hulk of dead flesh that it was.

  “Faster!” Jongor commanded the dino. “Do you not see there is little time? We must save the girl, and the others too, despite the fact that they tried to kill me. Move, you overgrown ox!”

  And the huge creature did move.

  “IT’S that freak native!” Varsey gasped. “He’s been following us all the time on that dinosaur!”

  “Is it possible that he’s able to control it?” Hofer queried in a stupefied tone of voice. “He rides it. It seems to obey him.”

  “That’s it!” Varsey shouted. “He has trapped us! He waited until the pterodactyls cut us off from the front. Now he’s using the dinosaur to block our escape!”

  Hofer fingered his rifle.

  “Maybe he can control, the pterodactyls too!” Varsey shrilled. “He may have made them attack us. Shoot him!”

  “If I was sure—” the guide said, hesitating.

  “You can be certain he’s back of this somewhere!” Varsey screamed. “You’re a better shot than I am. Go on and shoot him. Then we’ll have a chance to escape.”

  Hofer lifted his rifle. His eyes squinted through the sights. The barrel moved as he followed the course of the dinosaur.

  Good shooting was automatic with the guide. Even in the direful circumstances facing them, with every second of vital importance, he did not hurry his shot. Gently his finger tightened on the trigger.

  The heavy rifle roared. But the bullet went harmlessly up into the air.

  Ann Hunter had heard Varsey, urging the guide to shoot. But everything was happening so rapidly that the meaning had scarcely registered on her mind. She turned just in time to see Hofer’s finger grow white on the trigger. She knocked the rifle up.

  “Ann!” Varsey yelled. “You don’t know what you’re doing!. That freak native on that animal is coming to kill us! He’s back of this whole thing!”

  “He’s not!” the girl cried angrily.

  “Didn’t you hear him call that he was coming to help?”

  “That’s only a ruse to get near,” Varsey insisted. “If Hofer won’t shoot him, I will.” He flung up his rifle.

  A SECOND later Varsey was looking straight into the barrel of Ann’s gun.

  “Put that rifle down, Richard Varsey?” she said grimly. “If you don’t, I’ll shoot you if it’s the last thing I ever do on this earth.”

  “Ann! You—you can’t mean it!”

  “I never meant anything more than that. The same goes for you too, Hofer. If you try to lift that rifle to your shoulder again, I’ll shoot you, too.”

  Her voice was so tense that it sounded brittle. She was near the breaking point physically, but there was no sign that her determination was weakening. Her blue eyes were blazing. She would carry out her threat. Both men knew it. Varsey stood without moving. Hofer let the muzzle of his gun drop.

  “Just as you say, Miss Hunter,” the guide said. “But that dinosaur is mighty close and those pterodactyls are even closer.
”

  It was a race, flapping pterodactyls on one side and a dinosaur running with ungainly leaps on the other. Ann could hear the thunder of the beast’s feet on the ground. She could hear its rider shouting,

  “Faster, thou great mountain of worm food! Move faster, or I shall beat you half to death when this is over.”

  She didn’t look around. For one thing, she did not dare take her eyes off Hofer and Varsey. And for another, she could see the teros.

  One tero was almost on them. Ann lifted her rifle and fired over Varsey’s shoulder. Her bullet winged it. But others were coming.

  “Turn around, you two, and shoot those pterodactyls,” she ordered crisply.

  They obeyed her. The three guns crashed out their fire. Ann could hear, between the rifle shots, the crashing of the dinosaur coming closer. She also heard the hiss of arrows over her head, saw the feathered shafts leaping out to deal death among the ranks of the advancing bird-lizards.

  “Stop, thou cousin of a snake!” a voice commanded. “Halt, I say! This is far enough.”

  The thunderous sound of the dinosaur’s hoofs died away. The voice called again.

  “Up here behind me, girl. Quickly.”

  Ann Hunter turned. The bronzed young giant was leaning over the neck of the dinosaur and was extending a hand down toward her.

  In ordinary circumstances, Ann would have been afraid to go near the giant beast. But now she felt no fear. She ran up. Jongor’s hand caught her, lifted her upward with the ease of a man lifting a baby. As she swung upward, she caught a glimpse of the face of her rescuer. Gray-eyed and brown-skinned, he was, and handsome. His eyes were smiling at her.

  “Save the men, too,” she whispered.

  Jongor hesitated. Hofer and Varsey stopped firing. They were glancing nervously from the man on the dinosaur to the approaching pterodactyls.

  “Up behind me, you men,” Jongor called.

  They did not have time to disobey him, or to argue. He snatched them upward literally out of the very teeth of the teros. The men clutched at the scaly sides of the giant animal, fighting desperately to hold on.

  “Run swiftly again, little one,” Jongor commanded. “Run through the swamps, where these teros cannot follow.”

  The “little one” responded. He wheeled, knocking down brush and small trees, sending stones clattering with his feet, and raced into the swamp. He carried four people as easily as he carried one. To his giant muscles, the added load was no more than four fleas would have been.

  CHAPTER IV

  The “Shaking Death”

  TWO hours later the dinosaur came up out of the swamp near the place where the three adventurers had entered Lost Land. The cliffs of the pterodactyls were far behind.

  Ann Hunter continuously said to herself.

  “I’m alive. I thought I was going to die, but I didn’t. I’m alive. He saved us again.”

  The “he” meant Jongor. Ann had slung her rifle over her shoulder. She was holding firmly with both, hands to the animal skin which girded Jongor’s body to keep from falling off the lumbering dinosaur.

  “Stop now, little one,” Jongor commanded. “This is far enough.”

  The beast halted. Jongor slid to the ground. He reached up and assisted Ann down. Varsey and Hofer, like two incredulous scarecrows sliding down a barn roof, tumbled to the ground.

  “I—I don’t know how to thank you,” Ann Hunter said, looking up at the young giant looming over her. For the first time, she realized how big this man was. He was at least six feet tall and he weighed very near two hundred pounds. Every pound of that weight was muscle and bone. There wasn’t an ounce of fat anywhere on him. He was as magnificent as a Greek statue.

  Impulsively she thrust out her hand. She was watching Jongor’s face. She saw him hesitate. He seemed to be trying to remember something. Then he smiled and took her hand. Her fingers were lost in that mighty palm, but his grip was strangely gentle.

  “There is no need—to thank me,” he answered slowly. He looked past her, at the two men, who had gotten to their feet. Jongor’s keen eyes went over Hofer. The guide stepped forward.

  “Young man,” he said, “I think we’ve made a mistake. I—well, I didn’t know. And it looked like you might be an enemy too. May I apologize?”

  Jongor measured the guide. He saw the force and drive of the man. He caught unmistakable hints of the iron will under the surface. Without knowing exactly how he knew it, he knew that this man would be a formidable antagonist.

  “You don’t have to apologize,” he answered. “I understand. You thought I was an enemy.”

  Looking over Hofer’s shoulder, he saw Varsey. He instantly recognized Varsey as the one who had shot at him when he had routed the attacking natives. His face hardened.

  “You!” Jongor said. There was an unmistakable grimness in his voice.

  Varsey went as white as death. He tried to say something, and choked. He backed away.

  Ann Hunter was still watching Jongor’s face. She saw recognition flash across it as. he looked at Varsey. And anger. Timidly she laid her hand on the giant’s arm.

  “Mr. Varsey didn’t mean to shoot at you,” she tried to explain. “He was terribly frightened, and he thought you were attacking us. So he fired, without thinking.”

  The girl caught the tension of the situation. The gray-eyed giant who had saved them was staring at Varsey. There was anger on his face. Also—and this was utterly inexplicable—there was disgust, and contempt. Varsey’s attempt to kill Jongor could account for the anger. But not for the disgust and the contempt. The mad thought flashed through Ann’s mind: had these two men met before? She dismissed it as impossible.

  “Please,” she begged. “I know you’re angry, but Mr. Varsey just didn’t understand that you were trying to help us.”

  He looked down at her. “What? Oh, that. I wasn’t thinking about it. It is not important.”

  “What?” she questioned. “I don’t understand.”

  Jongor shrugged. “It is nothing.”

  HE seemed to want to change the subject. Ann was glad of that. As soon as she asked the next question, she felt the tension begin to relax. But it remained in the background, a hidden, unknown, sinister threat.

  “Who—who are you?” she asked. Ever since she first saw him, she had been wanting to ask that question.

  “I am Jongor.”

  “Jongor?” She was puzzled. “Is that all of your name? And how do you happen to be here in this forlorn country? And you speak English!” The giant laughed. “I am Jongor,” he said. “The name is really John Gordon, but I couldn’t say both words when I was a little tot. So I called myself Jongor. And I still think of myself by that name.”

  “But—”

  “I was born in this land,” Jongor added. Tersely, he gave her his story.

  It was an incredible experience for Ann Hunter. She listened to this gray-eyed giant tell, simply and directly, of his life here in Lost Land, of the death of his parents, of the almost impossible odds he had faced in living. She knew he was telling the truth, and yet in spite of herself she found she was doubting him.

  To her, everything was unreal. She kept telling herself that this was some dream she was having, some nightmare from which she would presently awaken. She did not know whether or not she wanted to awaken.

  Jongor leaned against the left leg of the dinosaur. The beast stood patiently.

  “And that’s all the story,” Jongor finished. “I was born here. I grew up here. I have occasionally ventured out to the edge of the desert, but I have never attempted to cross it. I know there is a world outside somewhere, but I have never tried to reach it. To me, this is home.”

  The dinosaur reached its head around. Jongor rubbed its nose.

  “Do you want to go now, little one?” he inquired, as if the beast could understand him. “Very well. You may go back to your beloved swamp. Go on.” He slapped it on the leg.

  The dinosaur snorted. It moved away.


  “Himmel!” Hofer gasped. “That mighty beast—how do you control it?

  Involuntarily, Jongor’s eyes went to the crystal imbedded in the bracelet on his wrist. He started to answer, but looked again at Hofer, and changed his mind.

  “The dino and I are friends,” he explained.

  “That is a lie!” the guide exploded. “That dinosaur, it does not have a thimbleful of brains! If you saved its life, it could not understand. Friendship would mean nothing to it. Ever since I saw you riding on it, I wondered how you controlled it. Now you tell it to go away. It obeys you. That proves you can control it. How do you do it?”

  The secret but momentarily forgotten urge seemed to flame again in the guide. His manner was suddenly demanding. He was not asking a favor. He was insisting on an explanation as his right.

  Jongor stared at him. “Yes, I can control the dinos,” the giant answered, as if making up his mind. “But how it is done I do not know. The Muros. But I cannot explain it.”

  “You must explain it!” the guide insisted. “It is of tremendous importance. It may be the clue that I have been seeking—” He quickly caught himself. “It may be of vast scientific importance. Tell me! How do you control the dinosaurs? And what are the Muros?”

  UNTIL then Ann Hunter had not realized how vitally significant was the fact that this gray-eyed giant who called himself Jongor could control a dinosaur. And control it perfectly, so perfectly that it seemed to understand every word he said!

  Dogs and horses could be easily trained, she knew; but she also knew that Hofer was right when he said the dinosaur did not have enough brains to be trained. The beast was a mountain of flesh, but its brainpower was so strictly limited as to be almost nonexistent. And yet Jongor controlled it far better than any huntsman ever controlled his hound!

  There was something weirdly mysterious in that control, something as incredible and as uncanny as—why, as the voice that came from the air, the voice that had ordered the natives to attack them! The voice had not spoken again. They had chosen to ignore it completely. In the stress of circumstances, Ann had forgotten it too.