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past the gates into the canyons. There is not<br />
much work, and the girls are pretty, and you<br />
die young if you do not live to be a hundred.”<br />
Tercio closed his eyes dreamily.<br />
“Here is everything a man <strong>co</strong>uld<br />
want,” he said. “There is peace and plenty<br />
inside the canyons, and if that palls on a man<br />
who is red-blooded, he can merely step<br />
outside the gates and have hunting.” Tercio<br />
smacked his lips. “And what hunting! You<br />
have see the dinosaurs, no?”<br />
“Yes,” Monk said. “And no more. I<br />
don’t like the things.”<br />
“You would not like to stay here?”<br />
Monk <strong>co</strong>nsidered the point. The<br />
place had its advantages.<br />
“I might like to retire here some day,”<br />
Monk admitted. “But—well, it’s this way. I like<br />
my excitement sort of spread out. Not in big<br />
bunches.”<br />
Tercio shook his head sadly. “You<br />
are getting old.”<br />
“I’m just getting reasonable,” Monk<br />
<strong>co</strong>rrected him. “I don’t mind hunting a bear,<br />
or even a lion—but these dinosaurs are a<br />
little too big for my caliber.”<br />
Tercio knew that they had moved<br />
Doc Savage’s plane—the one in which Monk<br />
and the others had flown inside—into one of<br />
the canyons where there was room for a<br />
take-off, and reassembled the craft.<br />
Tercio sought out Doc Savage.<br />
“You go back outside?” he asked.<br />
“If we can make it,” Doc admitted.<br />
“You make it. Flying out much easier<br />
than flying in.” Tercio hesitated, gnawing his<br />
lower lip miserably. “And after that—oh, hell!”<br />
He spread his hands. “Think of what will<br />
happen to this place.”<br />
“As far as we are <strong>co</strong>ncerned,” Doc<br />
said quietly, “no one will ever know this place<br />
exists.”<br />
Tercio stared at him with joy, but not<br />
understanding. “Why . . . why will you do<br />
that?”<br />
“This place is a treasure,” Doc<br />
Savage said slowly. “It is a treasure that we<br />
would like to give to some future generation<br />
of the world’s people. We say a future<br />
generation for two reasons. First, the human<br />
race has more archaeological dis<strong>co</strong>veries<br />
today than it can classify. The need of<br />
explorers is not to find more wonders, but to<br />
classify and understand what has already<br />
been found.”<br />
The bronze man was silent a<br />
moment.<br />
“And the se<strong>co</strong>nd reason: We are<br />
very dubious whether the human race is<br />
ready to receive a scientific treasure such as<br />
this place. It is possible that bombs and<br />
cannon would be rushed in to destroy the<br />
prehistoric animals that abound here. We are<br />
thinking of the buffalo that once roamed the<br />
Western United States by millions, and were<br />
slaughtered until now there are hardly more<br />
than a few zoo specimens. It would be<br />
horrible if something like that should happen<br />
here, for this—this world of sixty million years<br />
ago—should be preserved as a valuable<br />
thing, an incredible gift that has <strong>co</strong>me down<br />
out of time to open to mankind the mysteries<br />
of other ages.”<br />
<strong>THE</strong> END
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