I could follow the river. People often built cities and towns along rivers or where rivers met the sea. Maybe that would be my best bet. The river would be good for the ’pus, too — plenty of water.

Decision made, I walked back along the outcropping to the main slope and continued down the mountain.

After about forty-five minutes of easy downhill walking, I heard movement off to my right. Since leaving the rainforest, I hadn’t seen any creatures larger than a dragonfly, so I crept closer to investigate. When I got near enough, I peered cautiously around a tree trunk.

What I saw could only be a dinosaur. It was small — its back might’ve come up to my knee — and bipedal. It had a narrow, snakelike head, which it was using to root around in the thick carpet of dead pine needles. Everything about it looked light and agile, from its long neck and tail to its small body and slender limbs. It was covered in downy feathers, and its forelimbs hosted a winglike panel of thick plumes. As I watched, it used its clawed hands to shift a small fallen branch, then snapped up a lizard that had been hiding underneath.

The creature pumped its head, gulping down its prey like an owl swallowing a mouse. Then it caught sight of me and froze, staring at me with large yellow eyes, a bit of lizard tail sticking comically from the corner of its mouth. Then it whirled and darted off. The dark-brown-and-rufous pattern of its plumage blended perfectly with the surrounding forest, and I quickly lost sight of it.

“Well, what do you know about that?” I said to the ’pus. “I guess there are some larger vertebrates here, after all.”

But except for one mini-dinosaur, the forest seemed strangely empty. Maybe I’d entered mini-dinosaur paradise — all the lizards you could eat and no competition.

After about another hour of walking, the tree-’pus gave me a hard squeeze. I stopped and surveyed the terrain before me. I couldn’t see anything. It squeezed me again, harder, and I turned a slow circle, looking behind and to the sides. Nothing.

I walked on, spooked. The ’pus kept squeezing me, but every time I stopped to look around, there was nothing there.

Finally, about twenty minutes later, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned quickly and saw a patch of ferns swaying, as though something had just darted into them. I saw another movement to my left and spun around, this time just catching a bit of feathery tail as it disappeared behind a fallen log.

Minis-dinos. They were following me.

My heart rate shot up, and I quickly reached for my rubber band. It wasn’t there. At some point it had come off, and I hadn’t even noticed. I took several slow breaths, reaching for calm.