The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1895-05-02
A PRIl[EVAL STORY.


in the post tertiary period Of the world
as he stood beside the tawny waters Of
o great inland sea whose waves gently
washed the warm shores Of the young
earth.
He was in Kansas, although he was
not aware of it, although as he stood he
looked off into the northwest anxiously
for the clouds that would bring rain to
break the drought.
The little brook which now winds
through the valley where he stood is a
mere glimmering ghostlet Of its mighty
post tertiary predecessor, the sea.
Chug was young and 1.-the and stall
wart, like the machairodus of the cata-
clysmio caves. His whole body was hard
as wood and covered with q coat Of
thick nut brown hair that harmonized
with the reddish beard that flowed over
his broad chest as that Of a post tertiary
PETER.
His heavy name of weather beaten
locks had never felt a hat.
About his loins from one shoulder
was draped the skin of a cave lion.
A ponderous mace of flint dashed by
leather thongs to the handle lay at his
feet.
Chug, who derived his name from
the sound of the mighty blow with
which he smote to death the ave lion
whose hide he wore, was not thinking
Of the ~pterodactyl from which he mar
rowly escaped the night before.
Nor did he notice the cyclopean oroc-
odiles in the sea.
+ His thoughts were sad and roamed
afar.
At a distance, too great for his COM
putation, he had been born amid a little
clan of post tertiarians.
A strange impulse, such as his broth
ers and sisters had never known, cam
over him.
" The monosyllahle conversation OF his
kin made him tired. Chug was wont to
-.wine wild flowers in his hair and wear
sandals of woolly hippopotamus hide.
"Spat- Spat," a young woman who
could skin an Irish elk quicker than
any woman Of the clan and who scorned
the luxury Of sandals or robes of hide,
one day pointed her reeking finger at
Chug as she paused in her work and
cried contemptuously, "Dude, dude!'
lyon didn't say dude when l saved
you from the claws of the ichthyosau-
rus!" retortod Chug and passed ON.
Thus Chug gathered up his weapons
and went forth alone and wandered
from his own fireside.
8 Long he had pondered over the mys-
terry Of life.
He had repeated in his sleep the re-
frain, There aye others.
If his clan existed, he argued, why
not other clans somewhere?
Was it not possible that in their soci-
ETY. he could lose that tired feeling
which had so oppressed him?
But moons had come and waned, he
had traversed unknown leagues OF mo-
. rass and forest, crossed the tide Of rush.
ing rivers, and ALL nothing but packs
of great hyenas, trumpeting mammoths,
giant graminivorous and c~arnivorous
mammalia and monstrous reptiles anC
amphibia.
Man was nil, and woman existed not
If Chug had lived nowadays, hi
would have known what troubled hi.
breast.
He would have found love in the eye
of beauty and become happy.
Poor Chug did not understand love
His soul yearned unconsciously.
His thoughts went back homeward.
1t had not been quite so bad there a
in this solitude.
He thought Of how be built a hous
for his mother of the ribs of a horne'
~tguandon that in life was 20 feet long
with legs thick as the fluted columns O
a Corinthian temple.
He recalled how he used to arise earl
and build the fire, and how he once ha
mashed his finger while chopping kin
ding with the old stone az.
An idea came to him as he stood ther
looking across the great sea.
Why not float upon its bosom on
raft and mayhap come upon anothe
people?
Chug worked with feverish fervo
. and in two days was launched upon b
hazardous journey.
But, alas, as he was putting to shol
AO" hoyS SlCACoASVAS al = oASoeAAh
cold blooded pleiosaurus, which W;
hidden in the reeds, suddenly shot i
horrible head at him, its long, flexib
neck seeming like a monstrous serpent
Chug pushed away madly, tore hir
self loose from the jagged jaws, b
tainted across his raft, and the tawl
waters bore it out to sea, the rude +
neral car Of a post tertiary hero.
For days the apparently dead voyag
fioated.
His system stood the strain, and t
spark Of life remained due to the fas
ion of the time of eating but once
week or SO.
fChug had dined the day prior to
misadventure.
Old Chief Tushe-tushe of the fish
men at the mouth of the river, n,
s known as the Arkansas, intercepted
raft and found Chug.
After due consideration among
tribe it was decided to put him to dea
srho Tusha. tushes had dwelt NV