The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1895-09-12
A PRIMEVAL STORY.
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Chug did not know that he belonged
I'm the post tertiary period of the world
as he stood beside the tawny waters
of the 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, and as he stood there
he looked off into the northwest anx-
iously 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 it's
mighty post tertiary predecessor, the
sea.
Chug was young and 1.-THE and stall
wart, like the machairOdus of the
cataclysmic caves. His whole body
was hard as wood and covered with
harmonized with the reddish beard
that flowed over his broad chest as
that of a post tertiary PETER.
His heavy name of we~ather-beaten
locks hat 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 cave 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 c%yclopean
crocodiles in the sea.
His thoughts were sad and roamed
afar.
At a distance too far for his compu-
tation he had been born amid a little
clan of post tertiarians.
A strange impulse, such as brothers
and sisters had never known, came
over him.
The mOnOsyllab bic conversation of his
kin made him tired. Chug was wont
to Irvine wild flowers in his hair and
wear sandals of woolly hippopotamus
hide.
"Spat-Spatr' a young woman who
could skin an Irish elk quicker than
I'M 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! Dudew
you didn't say dude when I saved
you from the claws of the ichthyosau-
rus!" retorted Chug, and passed on.
Thus Chug gathered up his weapons
| and went forth alone, and wandered
from his own fireside.
Long he had pondered over the mys-
terry of life.
He had repeated in his sleep the re-
frain, "There are Others"
If his clan existed, he argued, why
not other clans somewhere?
Was it not possible that in their so.
ciety 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
rushing rivers, and still holding moth
ing but packs of great hyenas, trum
pc tingmammoths, giant graminiv
rus and carnivorus mammalia ant
monstrous reptiles and amphibia.
Man was nil, and woman existed
not
would have known what troubled hi
breast.
He would have found love in tn,
l CIV 20 vi pNDAtl LIN ~ ~
Poor Chug did not understand love
His soul yearned unconsciously.
His thought went back homeward.
1t had not been quite SO bad Their
as in this solitude.
He thought of how he built a hous
for his mother of the ribs of a horne,
iguanodon hat in life was sevent,
feet long, with legs thick as the flute
columns of a Corinthian temple.
He recalled how he used to arts
early and build the fire, and how h
once had mashed his finger Will
chopping kindling wood with the stOn
ak.
An idea came to him as he StOol
there looking across the great sea.
why not float upon it's bosom on
raft and mayhap come upon anothe
people.
Chug worked with feverish fervol
and in two days was launched upOl
his hazardous journey.
But, alas, as he was putting to shor
a few days thereafter. an air breath
ing, cold-blooded pleiosaurus, whic
was hidden in the reeds, suddenl
shot it's horrible leld at him, it's Ion
flexible neck seeming like a monstrou
serpent.
Chug pushed away madly, tore hin
self loose from the Jagged jaws, bu
tainted across his raft, and the tawn
waters bore it out to sea, the rud
funeral car of a post tertiary hero.
For days the apparently dead voy
ager 1Oated.
His system stood the strain, and tn
spark of life remained due to the fasl
ion of the time of eating but once
week or so.
Chug had dined the day prior to hi
misadventure.
Old Chief Tushe-tushe of the fisher
men at the mouth of the river, nov
known as the Arkansas, intercepte
the raft and found Chug.
After due consideration among tn
tribe it was decided to put him t
death.
The Tushe-tushes had dwelt by tn
sea many generations, and the legend
gave their origin as the children O
a gigantic mastodonsaurus which ha
formerly infested the coast.
Their village was on the site Of tn