As it waddled sulkily away from the cave mouth, Denvarre slipped in another cartridge, and aiming carefully for its head, fired again. The merest shred of horny skin flicked away from above its eyelid as the bullet thudded home, and not a vestige of blood showed upon the green hide. Evidently those scales were bullet-proof.

It turned with a puzzled air as it felt the rap of the ball, looking back at us in an almost meditative manner, as if wondering if we had anything to do with this thing. Then its eye caught and dwelt upon the Mayan mummy, which still lay half divested of its coverings upon the slab of stone beside the stream. It ambled forward a pace or two, nosing at the carrion uncertainly. Then it swung its head toward the ice-stream, and laved and slobbered its tongue in the water till the bleeding had well-nigh ceased. There was a snap of his bony jaws and a twist of the hard lips as the head shot back again. A single gulp sufficed, and both coats and body were gone. Nothing remained but the slowly-sinking swelling of the long thick throat, and a ragged shred or two of cloth upon the gray stones at its feet.

Chapter XII, pages 192-193