Project Mastodon | Page 3

three persons?"
Cooper shook his head. "He wouldn't answer that way, Wes. He'd duck the question or give them some diplomatic double-talk. After all, how can we be sure there are only three of us? We took over the whole continent, remember."
"You know well enough, Johnny, there are no other humans back here in North America. The farthest back any scientist will place the migrations from Asia is 30,000 years. They haven't got here yet."
"Maybe we should have done it differently," mused Cooper. "Maybe we should have included the whole world in our proclamation, not just the continent. That way, we could claim quite a population."
"It wouldn't have held water. Even as it is, we went a little further than precedent allows. The old explorers usually laid claim to certain watersheds. They'd find a river and lay claim to all the territory drained by the river. They didn't go grabbing off whole continents."
"That's because they were never sure of exactly what they had," said Cooper. "We are. We have what you might call the advantage of hindsight."
He leaned back against the tree and stared across the land. It was a pretty place, he thought--the rolling ridges covered by vast grazing areas and small groves, the forest-covered, ten-mile river valley. And everywhere one looked, the grazing herds of mastodon, giant bison and wild horses, with the less gregarious fauna scattered hit and miss.
Old Buster, the troublesome mastodon, a lone bull which had been probably run out of a herd by a younger rival, stood at the edge of a grove a quarter-mile away. He had his head down and was curling and uncurling his trunk in an aimless sort of way while he teetered slowly in a lazy-crazy fashion by lifting first one foot and then another.
The old cuss was lonely, Cooper told himself. That was why he hung around like a homeless dog--except that he was too big and awkward to have much pet-appeal and, more than likely, his temper was unstable.
The afternoon sun was pleasantly warm and the air, it seemed to Cooper, was the freshest he had ever smelled. It was, altogether, a very pleasant place, an Indian-summer sort of land, ideal for a Sunday picnic or a camping trip.
The breeze was just enough to float out from its flagstaff before the tent the national banner of Mastodonia--a red rampant mastodon upon a field of green.
"You know, Johnny," said Adams, "there's one thing that worries me a lot. If we're going to base our claim on precedent, we may be way off base. The old explorers always claimed their discoveries for their nations or their king, never for themselves."
"The principle was entirely different," Cooper told him. "Nobody ever did anything for himself in those days. Everyone was always under someone else's protection. The explorers either were financed by their governments or were sponsored by them or operated under a royal charter or a patent. With us, it's different. Ours is a private enterprise. You dreamed up the time unit and built it. The three of us chipped in to buy the helicopter. We've paid all of our expenses out of our own pockets. We never got a dime from anyone. What we found is ours."
"I hope you're right," said Adams uneasily.
Old Buster had moved out from the grove and was shuffling warily toward the camp. Adams picked up the rifle that lay across his knees.
"Wait," said Cooper sharply. "Maybe he's just bluffing. It would be a shame to plaster him; he's such a nice old guy."
Adams half raised the rifle.
"I'll give him three steps more," he announced. "I've had enough of him."
Suddenly a roar burst out of the air just above their heads. The two leaped to their feet.
"It's Chuck!" Cooper yelled. "He's back!"
The helicopter made a half-turn of the camp and came rapidly to Earth.
Trumpeting with terror, Old Buster was a dwindling dot far down the grassy ridge.

III
They built the nightly fires circling the camp to keep out the animals.
"It'll be the death of me yet," said Adams wearily, "cutting all this wood."
"We have to get to work on that stockade," Cooper said. "We've fooled around too long. Some night, fire or no fire, a herd of mastodon will come busting in here and if they ever hit the helicopter, we'll be dead ducks. It wouldn't take more than just five seconds to turn us into Robinson Crusoes of the Pleistocene."
"Well, now that this recognition thing has petered out on us," said Adams, "maybe we can get down to business."
"Trouble is," Cooper answered, "we spent about the last of our money on the chain saw to cut this wood and on Chuck's trip to Washington. To build a stockade, we need a tractor. We'd kill ourselves if we tried to rassle that many logs bare-handed."
"Maybe we could catch