"Reminds one of a bloody jack-o'-lantern, doesn't it?"
"You can't call him Jack," King burst out.
"And why bloody not?"
"I wanted to call him Skip."
"Skip?"
"King Skip, actually."
They looked at him.
"You know, like King Kong."
"Jack it is," Nancy said flatly. She looked to Thorpe. "You think he'll follow our trail of goodies through open savanna?"
"Haven't the foggiest," Thorpe admitted. "But it's either let Jack run or give up."
"I'm in no mood to give up. Get the men deployed."
"Righto." Thorpe crashed off.
"What about me?" King asked.
"It's morning," Nancy said, turning away. "Make yourself useful and brew up some coffee."
"You wouldn't talk to me that way if this weren't Africa!"
The Apatosaur emerged from the Kanda Tract like the final collapse of the burning house. The splintering of brush and nettles was tremendous. Then as if it had lost all substance, it padded serenely into open grassland.
From points of concealment at the edge of the tract, they watched it pause, look around, and swing its long serpentine head in undulant arcs.
It stared back at the sheltering rain forest lovingly, as if homesick.
"Now!" Nancy shouted.
The Bantus had rigged up slingshots large enough to launch the melons. They let fly. Three of the green globes arced high and came crashing down several feet ahead of the creature's path.
The pulpy smell immediately attracted its attention. The head swung back. And like a locomotive building up a head of steam, it started forward.
The melons vanished quickly. The head came up, eyes inquisitive.
And there in its path lay a single golden toadstool. It started toward it. And the toadstool retreated ever so slightly.
Undeterred, the reptile kept moving.
"What's going on?" King muttered.
Nancy looked around. "Where's Thorpe?"
"B'wana Thorpe in bush. Play trick on N'yamala."
"He didn't!"
"He did, Missy Derringer."
"That is one smart limey," Skip King said. "I may not dock him after all."
"You were going to dock him? For what?"
"For mutiny," said King.
"Your superiors are going to hear about every screwup you committed since we left the States."
"I'm going to have some choice words for them, too, Miss Masculine. Or should I say, Dr. Masculine?"
In the grass, the reptile was doggedly pursuing the elusive toadstool. Every time he got close enough to lower his head for the prize, it slipped away.
"He's pushing it," King said.
As if reading King's mind, the toadstool lay waiting when the great saurian head plunged down again. This time it succeeded. The toadstool went into the mouth as the head lifted up like a triumphant crane.
Then another toadstool appeared not far from it. The Apatosaur started for that one. And the stop-and-start game of cat-and-mouse began again.
By this time, it seemed safe to emerge from the rain forest and they filtered out.
They crept forward cautiously, keeping low. Most of the packs had been left behind.
One of the cameramen was creeping ahead of the rest and using his videocam to record a shot of the beast's undulating rump.
Nancy had a microcassette recorder out and was talking into it.
"Locomotion undulant, flexure resembling that of a pachyderm. Tail held off the ground in accordance with current theories. Skin appears semimoist and leathery but smooth in general appearance."
Then, the cameraman came back holding his nose in one hand and the camera in the other.
"What's wrong?" Nancy hissed.
"It dumped a load. Christ. It stinks!"
"That was inevitable. It's been feeding for six hours straight. "
The stagnant air made the smell worse. The others walked around the steaming lump of matter. But Nancy, wearing a filter mask, crept up to it and using a twig, poked a sample loose and into a glass jar, which she quickly capped. There was a blank label on which she inscribed the date and the words Specimen #1.
For the better part of the day, they kept moving. The Bantus took turns spelling Thorpe. At one point, the beast let out a blood-chilling roar and they thought it was about to turn ugly.