After that, no one was willing to walk directly in the creature's tramped-down wake.
By evening, it did something they should have expected but didn't.
It stopped, looked around as if casing the area, and dropped its belly to the grass. The tail curled close to its body and the head settled flat on the grass.
"Oh my God, it's dead!" King wailed.
"Don't jump to conclusions! Who wants to investigate?"
"I'll take the trick," Thorpe said, motioning for two Bantus to follow him.
Together, they crept up on the creature. He walked around to the head, his body language indicating he was ready to shoot or run if the creature made a sudden move, and probably both.
Thorpe crept back.
"It's asleep," he reported.
"What do we do now?" King complained. "He's going to throw us all off schedule."
"You're right."
"I am?"
"Yes. We can't let him sleep away the night."
"Right."
"It was your idea," Nancy said. "Go wake him."
Skip King had his mouth open. He shut it. His eyes closed. "I am not in my element here," he muttered to no one in particular and went off to sit in the shade of a tulip tree and talk to himself in a low angry voice.
"Good," said Nancy. "This is the perfect opportunity for me to do something important."
Thorpe asked, "What?"
"I'm going to be the first zoologist to sex a dinosaur."
Nancy approached the reptile. They shone a light all over its tail, under the curve of his hind legs and generally poked around.
She came back with a disappointed look on her face.
"No luck?"
"Whatever he or she's got, it's well hidden."
"At least you didn't wake the brute."
It was while the Apatosaur slumbered that the Land Rovers were heard.
"Now who could that be?" Thorpe muttered aloud, peering into the hot twilight.
"Government men, maybe," Nancy ventured.
"Could be. Why don't I take a look?"
Taking two Bantus, Thorpe went toward the sound. The three were lost to sight in a matter of moments.
The first shot was not loud. But the ones that followed were. They cracked in the distance like firecrackers.
Then there was silence. The Apatosaur slumbered on.
Thorpe turned up twenty minutes later. Only one of the Bantus was with him and he clutched a wounded right shoulder.
"What happened?"
"Bandits. "
"Bandits?"
"Blokes in camouflage outfits driving Land Rovers."
"Not government men?"
"Government men wear khaki, not fatigues. These lads had green berets. Very French. There's nothing French about the Gondwanaland Army. They did for poor Tyrone, though. He's dead."
Nancy bandaged the other native as she asked questions.
"Poachers?"
"Poachers don't wear matching berets. These lads dressed all of a type. Can't rightly make it out, actually. "
"What do you think they want?"
"There's a lot of famine west of these parts. Fresh meat can fetch a pretty farthing on the black market."
Nancy looked up. Thorpe was staring at the slumbering dinosaur, his leathery features grim.
"You can't mean Jack?" she said. "He's the last of his kind. Worth more alive than butchered!"
Thorpe shrugged. "Out here meat is meat. I fancy even a few of these Bantus may be willing to try human flesh if things got desperate enough for them. I'm not sure I'd pass it up if the situation was sufficently sticky."
Grimly, Nancy finished what she was doing. She stood up.
"Will they be back?"
"Hard to tell. But we're sitting ducks as long as Old Jack is disposed to count sheep."