Mastodonia by Clifford D. Simak

money for, and we turned a handsome profit on it. Somehow the safari outfit got wind of how well we’d done and my stock went up with them. They came around later and asked if I would be interested if they could round up some more of the junk. You see, they aren’t in the retail business, so they had to find someone …”
    â€œI suppose,” I said, “they want proof just like your old friend Courtney.”
    â€œThat’s right,” she said. “And the funny thing about it is that all they’re interested in are dinosaurs. They fairly drooled when I asked them if they could get clients to go hunting dinosaurs. Not mastodon, not mammoth, not sabertooth cats, not cave bears, nor even titanotheres, but dinosaurs. Big ones and vicious ones. I asked them what kind of gun you’d have to use to shoot a big dinosaur and they said they didn’t know, but probably the biggest that ever had been made. I asked if they had some of those guns around and they said they did—a couple of them that had never been used. They weren’t even sure they were being manufactured any longer. Elephant guns, but now, with higher muzzle velocity, an elephant can be done in by a much smaller caliber. Not that there are many elephants being shot these days. So I said, by God, that I wanted to buy those two guns, and after some backing and filling, they agreed to sell them to me. By this time, I am sure, they thought I was out of my mind. They charged me a thousand apiece and swore they were losing money, throwing in a few dozen rounds of ammunition to sweeten up the bargain. I suppose they were losing money, but they were unloading items that no one else would buy. Those rifles are monsters. Must weigh twenty pounds or so. And the cartridges are banana-sized.”
    â€œLook,” I said, “if you think I’m going out and knocking over a brace of carnosaurs just to offer proof, you’d better think again. I’m hell on wheels with a twenty-two, but this is something different. It takes a big man to shoot one of those old-time elephant guns.”
    â€œYou’re big enough,” she said. “Maybe you wouldn’t even have to shoot. Protection, that is all. Just in case some carnosaur should charge while I’m getting the proof on film. I bought a movie camera—color film, with sound, telescopic lens, everything one would ever need.”
    â€œBut why two guns? One is all a man can carry. And you’ll be packing the camera.”
    â€œI got two guns,” she said, “because I’m not about to have you go out there alone. We have no idea what it will be like, but to me it sounds a little chancy. We’d be better off with two guns. I figured maybe we could persuade one of your old pals …”
    â€œRila, we’ve got to keep this under cover for a while. It’s already beginning to leak out. Ben Page got hold of Hiram and got suspicious when Hiram began acting important …”
    â€œWe’ve got to keep it quiet,” she said, “but we’ve got to come back alive, or all the proof in the world won’t help us any.”
    I didn’t like it, but I could see the logic of what she was saying.
    â€œMaybe Ben would come along with us,” I said. “He’d be a good man to have along. He fancies himself a mighty hunter, and he is fairly good. Each fall he goes up north for deer season, and he’s hunted in Canada and Alaska. Moose, bighorns, grizzly—stuff like that. Years ago he bagged a Kodiak. And a caribou. He still talks about the caribou. For years, he wanted to go to Africa, but he never made it, and now the hunting’s gone.…”
    â€œWould he go with us and keep quiet about what he sees for a while?”
    â€œI think so. I had to tell him part of it—about the possibility of a spaceship in the sinkhole—and I swore him to secrecy. He was willing to go along on the secrecy because